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COVE DALE FARM, 




25 YEARS 



IN THE 



POITLTBY TAED, 



OR 



HOW I SUCCESSFULLY REAR 
AND CARE FOR 



POULTRY 



AND COMPEL 



HENS TO LAY EGGS 




Fifth Edition. 



V JUN 22 188 



A. M. LANG, 

Core Dale Farm, 
CONCORD, KY 




BY 
V 



Copyrighted A.D. 1883, by 

A. M. LANG, 

Concord, Kentucky. 



y 
TO THE READER. 



This book owes its origin to the repeated 
request of subscribers of the different news- 
papers that I have corresponded for within 
the past twenty years. The farmer that ac- 
cepts the theory that stock perfectly accept- 
able ten years ago, is not acceptable to-day, 
is the successful one. The call for better 
stock, and for information as to what is good 
stock, and the best modes for rearing it, comes 
from all sections. A book is wanted which, 
every one who keeps a dozen fowls, can afford 
to buy, and at the same time giving all the 
needed information in plain, short and direct 
language. 

In answer to this demand I offer this little 
book, all of which is respectfully submitted 
to the reader. 

A. M. LANG, 

Cove Dale Farm. 

Conxord, Ky., April ist, 1883. 



Kind Friends: 

It is now 25 years since I began the poultry 
business. At first my idea was to get a lot of 
hens, put them up, (I then lived in a small vil- 
lage,) feed them well, expecting they would 
pay a profit in eggs. I bought too many for 
the room I had, and, by spring, the majority 
had died of cholera. Then I concluded to raise 
young chicks for early market. By June but 
few were left, — "died with the Gapes." The 
next fall my flock took the Roup, — lost the 
entire lot in a week. Looked well at night, 
and be under the perch, dead, the next morn- 
ing. 

To be successful, these three diseases must 
be prevented. I could not possibly succeed 
without some sure plan to keep them in sub- 
jection ; neither can any person living. You 
may get your flocks to laying, every thing work- 
ing smoothly — making money. Let any of the 
three diseases begin in your flock, and you 
lose the entire investment — your time, besides 
being sorely troubled and vexed. 

All persons that buy my Recipes can keep 
any of the three diseases in subjection. If they 
use care, will not lose one chick, either young 
or old, out of a hundred, in a year. But there 
are a great many other things to be looked 

after— closely, too, if you rear poultry with suc- 

(3) 



4 CAKE FOR SITTING HENS AND EGGS. 

cess, and have hens to lay eggs as they should 
do. I write this book especially for persons 
that use my recipes. I do not guess at any 
thing, neither do I copy. I give you facts, just 
as I have learned them from my own experi- 
ence and close practical observation. 

I claim to be the most successful poultry 
raiser in the United States, and I will give 
you the details so minute that you must be 
successful. 

CARE FOR SITTING HENS AND EGGS. 

Eggs designed for hatching should be col- 
lected as soon as laid, especially so when the 
weather is cold or windy. They should be 
kept on soft material, no one resting on an- 
other, and handled (carefully) every day. 
Avoid exposing them to sudden extremes of 
heat or cold. A moderately damp cellar is 
the best place to keep them at all seasons of 
the year. Some say " large end down," others 
" small end down." The hen leaves them on 
the side, and she is good authority. They 
can be transported any distance and hatched, 
if packed carefully, and not too long on the 
way, — often across the ocean, or from Cincin- 
nati to San Francisco. Eggs so treated will 
keep from three to five weeks and hatch. 
Much depends on the vigor and vitality of 
the parent stock. Fresh eggs hatch quicker 
than old ones, and make stronger chicken. 



SITTING HENS. 



Any of the Asiatic breeds make good mothers. 
They are naturally very tame, and admit of 
any amount of handling without getting ex- 
cited. Games make good mothers, but de- 
cidedly cross ones. I prefer a mixture of 
11 Barn Yard," or common fowls for sitters, 
on account of their being light, and good for- 



agers, 



SITTING HENS. 

When shall I begin? If you are a fancier, 
you understand the theory, that early hatches 
always sell for the most money in the fall. 
They mature and begin laying earlier, and make 
a larger growth. If a farmer, as a class, I think 
we always relish a good " fry." The first thing 
we need, then, is a hen to sit. The first of 
January provide plenty of good, warm nests 
in your hen houses, paste paper over the cracks 
on the inside of the box, a small shovel full 
of ashes, then plenty of cut straw. If they 
scratch the straw out, fill in with old rags. 
During this month you should feed all they 
will eat, of mixed seeds, warmed, etc. But 
if you want a sure thing, feed middlings, mixed 
with sweet milk, in the morning, (a little pep- 
per in it), wheat and chess, or mill screenings 
at noon, all the corn they will eat at night, 
parched and limed as directed in Hog Cholera 
recipe. Feed every thing hot. Roast com- 
mon muscle, or oyster shells, (as you would 



6 SITTING HENS. 

coffee), feed all they will eat, pounded up in a 
clean place. If you use bone meal I should 
roast it, and mix plenty of it in their milk 
feed in the morning. Be sure and keep a 
supply of gravel for them, as their supply is 
generally cut short now by freezing weather. 

On the stone that you mash your shells, 
break small pieces of common lime-stone rock ; 
if no lime-stone use any kind you have, so it 
will be the size of small peas. Be sure their 
water is in clean vessels, and prepared as 
directed for young chicks in Gape Preven- 
tive Recipe. It should be warm. 

Of course your house should be as comfort- 
able as possible ; and the nests hung so the 
sun will shine on them. Manage so that but 
one hen will lay in the nest, if you can. You 
must provide a Dust Box: take a six inch 
plank ; lay one edge off twenty-four inches 
long, the other twenty-five inches ; saw each 
end to the slope, and nail the short sides to 
match ; it will be wider at the top than bot- 
tom. Cover bottom with any light boards, 
and fill with road dust, (provided in the fall), 
with a little lime and sulphur mixed in it. If 
no road dust get dry dirt from under a house 
or barn ; it must be kept in the dry. 

Generally your large breeds and common 
fowls will begin to lay the first little warm 
spell. They will lay 13 to 15 eggs, and then 
begin to brood. If you find a hen on her nest, 
slip a few eggs under her, and see that other 



A COMMON SENSE INCUBATOR. 7 

hens do not pull her off, or annoy her. After 
she has been on two nights, you can move 
her where you want her, by arranging the 
nest so she can not leave it only at your 
will. 

SIT THE HEN BY HERSELF. 

I always move my own to a hatching house, 
(formerly a meat or " smoke house "), sixteen 
feet square — dirt floor ; walls are close. In 
cold weather the nest boxes are placed on 
shelves, one above the other ; in hot weather, 
generally out doors in nooks and corners on 
the ground. Those in the house are provided 
plenty of feed and water, and, generally, left 
at will after the first three days, but I never 
let them out of the house. Keep the house 
dark, only barely enough light to see to eat 
and drink. This prevents their quarreling 
and fighting. 

A COMMON-SENSE INCUBATOR. 

It is now- near the first of February. We 
should provide artificial heat. Some people 
cheat the hen out of her sit, but I will as'sist 
her. Take a box sixteen to twenty inches 
square, fourteen inches high, throw what will 
make four inches deep, when pressed down, 
of fresh stable manure, in it. Take a spade, 
cut a sod of grass as near two inches thick as 



8 A COMMON-SENSE INCUBATOR. 

you can, put the grass side up, the out edges 
being just a little the highest; on top of this 
place about two inches of cut or pounded 
straw. 

Nine eggs are enough. Never over-esti- 
mate the hatching qualities of a hen. In hot 
weather thirteen eggs are enough. By giving 
them a reasonable number they will hatch 
and rear more than to over-crowd them. 

Make your arrangements to remove the 
hen about dark. 

Heat an old stove-lid, or large rock and 
place in the nest so as to have it comfortably 
warm. Have a few eggs laid in warm water, 
so they will be warm. After the nest is prop- 
erly warm, remove the lid or rock ; place the 
eggs in and the hen on the nest, and provide 
a box or some rig to keep her on a few days. 

I have succeeded in getting hens to sit, this 
way, in January and February, that hardly 
" clucked " when placed on the nest. If she 
gets the "fever," she will be down and to 
business by the second night, at which time 
I place the eggs under her that she is ex- 
pected to hatch, previously laid in warm water. 

Now she will be faithful to her charge, but 
will you ? You must provide her plenty of 
feed, — corn is best — drink, gravel and dust- 
bath handy. 

If she has to quit her nest long enough to 
forage for those things, the eggs will chill, and 



A COMMON-SENSE INCUBATOR. 9 

if any hatch at all, they will be weak and cry- 
ing around so as to annoy you. 

Sprinkle the hen and eggs with sulphur 
two or three times during incubation, but not 
for the last four days. Tack a card over each 
nest, telling the variety, and when the brood 
comes off. During incubation the eggs should 
be wet often, especially if the weather is dry ; 
perhaps three times a week, unless the nest 
is on the ground. 

The object is to rot the shell, so the chick 
will not spend its vitality in liberating itself. 
Sprinkle them thoroughly on the day before 
the brood comes off, and you will have but 
very few die in the shell. The inside lining 
of the shell often gets so dry and hard, that 
the little chick can not liberate itself. 

Notice the hen that steals her nest out. She 
will leave it and seek food in the morning, 
when the grass is wet, and will go back with 
feathers dripping with water. Should the 
nest get fouled in any way, take the hen off 
carefully, and, if necessary, she may be 
washed ; wash the eggs in blood-warm water ; 
clean the nest or make a new one ; replace 
the eggs and hen, and your " incubator " is 
running again. 

It is useless to try to help the chicks out 
of the shell — you will kill more than you can 
save. 

As a general thing, it is best not to dis- 
turb a hen while hatching. Some hens get 



IO CARE CF CHICKENS. 

restless and uneasy, keep moving about, on 
and off the nest, etc. In this case remove the 
chicks wrapped up in a woolen rag, and place 
them where they will be warm enough ; if 
they are not kept so they will be continually 
chirping or "crying." 

CARE OF CHICKENS. 

If the foregoing instructions are, followed, 
on the twenty-first day you will find a nest 
full of nice, plump, healthy chicks. Can you 
keep them so ? but very few can, and if you 
fail here this causes the whole business to be 
a failure. 

Just as soon as the chick can lift its head 
up in the downy feathers of the hen, it be- 
comes exposed to the lice already hatched on 
the hen, and, seeking something young and 
tender to live on. If you allow them to get 
lousy (examine their heads the first five or six 
days and you can tell), they are ruined ; so to. 
avoid all this trouble apply my "Gape Pre- 
ventive and Lice Exterminator, ,, as provided 
for in the recipe — and be sure you do so be- 
fore the lice can get a hold. If you do not 
you are almost sure to have gaping chicks. 
It is best to lift the hen from the nest, clean 
the nest of shells, etc., then replace the chicks 
and leave them in the warm nest as long as 
they will remain contented. 

I do not feed until twenty-four hours old, 



WHAT TO FEED. I I 

and prefer them older if contented. They 
seem to do best not to feed or water until 
nearly forty-eight. They need brooding or 
" hovering " now, more than feed. Often a 
hen will be restless, will not brood them, etc.; 
first feed all the corn she will eat, give plenty 
of water to drink, after this, if she continues 
restless, cover her quarters so as to make 
them dark. 

The weather is cold, but they must leave 
the nest. Get you a common-sized boot box, 
remove the sides, leave the end up. Get 
cheap muslin to go round the box, in place 
of the board sides ; nail a strip three inches 
wide on the top, tack the muslin to this, and 
lay a wide board on the top for a cover. Put 
one inch of dry dirt on the bottom, the hen 
and chicks in it, and they have a splendid 
home, if you keep them in a room w T here 
they are warm enough. February, 1881, I 
had 130 in my office twenty-seven days. Once 
the thermometer was eight degrees below 
zero, and I never saw chicks do any better. 
The dirt must be changed every day or two, 
and carbolic acid, diluted in water, sprinkled 
over the boxes once a week. One box will 
afford a hen and nine chicks plenty of room. 
Twice a day is often enough to warm the 
room. 

WHAT TO FEED. 

Let me firmly impress your mind with the 



12 WHAT TO FEED. 

fact, a chicken is not a hog ; the more slop 
you feed a hog the better ; but every thing 
you feed young chicks must be dry as possi 
ble. Indian meal, when uncooked, is the 
worst feed little chicks get, especially so when 
fed in a soft or sloppy state. It swells and 
hardens in their crops, and causes irritation, 
which soon shows itself by drooping wings 
and general weakness. The best feed, and 
most convenient to farmers, is dry, light 
bread, just dampened in sweet milk. The 
next best is middlings, mixed with equal parts 
of Indian meal, and mixed with scalding 
water, — milk would be better. 

Feed but little at a time, and at least every 
hour for the first few days. Do not oblige 
the chicks to stand out in the cold waiting for 
something to eat. 

The second day you can feed them cracked 
wheat, which, at this age, is the very best 
food for them ; a few days longer they will eat 
wheat and chess, mill screenings, and, finally, . 
cracked corn; any of these are better than 
meal. They do not waste as much; it will 
not sour as soon ; it can be kept near by them 
and is ready at all times. 

Be sure they get no water to drink, unless 
prepared as directed in directions for Gape 
Preventive. Best to raise some small grained 
corn to feed when small. Reduce the soft 
feed to twice a day, when they can eat wheat, 
and to once, when they can eat corn. Feed 



WHAT TO FEED. r 3 

mostly the charred corn. If the ground gets 
warm, let them out to pick young grass, now 
just starting ; but never let them out to be 
chilled ; if you do they will die, and you will 
never know what was the trouble with your 
chicks. 

Any of the large breeds are good for early 
broilers ; often by middle of February and 
always by first of March, you can get fifty 
hatched, if you are careful, so by first of May 
you have broilers nice enough for a king. If 
nicely fattened will bring you fifty cents each, 
in any good city market. 

Now what has been detailed here holds 
good throughout the season in hatching. 
After the weather gets warm you need not 
prepare the " Common-sense Incubator," but 
1 always put dirt, and plenty of it, under a 
sitting hen. If the weather is damp you need 
not dampen the nest much, but if dry and 
hot, keep the nest dampened. If your nests 
are too dry, it requires too much force for the 
chick to liberate itself from the shell, and is 
apt to produce deformed chicks. To damp- 
en the tgg y is to rot the shell, and have plump, 
hardy chicks. It is better to have as many 
come off as near the same time as possible. 
Less trouble to care for them. If the hen 
tramps her chicks, keep away from her, do 
not scare or excite her ; such hens are like 
some women, they are very nervous. 

If she plucks or picks her chicks, shut her 



14 CATCH THE RATS. 

up with them in a dark box, until she has 
time to learn their voices. 

Do not set the coop on the cold, damp 
ground. If early in the season place your 
coop in the barn shed, and boards under your 
little chicks to " roost " on. This must be 
kept dry and warm. If they remain on the 
cold ground all night, they are likely to be 
sick the next day. If the weather is cold 
give them plenty of dry cut straw to roost on. 
if you use boards scrub once a week with 
soap suds. If a dry dirt floor, sweep it clean 
every two days. 

Mark this : Never feed young chicks in the 
box where they roost, or any place where 
their droppings will commingle with the feed. 
If this is persisted in, it brings disastrous fail- 
ure always. 

Always see that they are on high ground 
at night. If it rains you do not want to go 
out and get wet to move them, and if in low 
ground they will drown. If rats trouble them, 
lay an old barrel on its side, let the hen and 
chicks get in ; once in, set the barrel up. 
This is rat or varmint proof. But be sure 
you scrub the barrel out. 

CATCH THE RATS. 

Lay a pile, say twelve to fifteen rails, or 
old rubbish, about thirty feet from your barn 
or house; lay straight. Take your cats and 



IF YOU ARE A FARMER. I 5 

dog, early in the morning. If there, the dog 
will say so, then move the rails and one or 
the other gets the rat — my cats generally are 
the surest. Your common dogs and cats will 
learn this. Never leave any thing for the rats 
to eat if possible. Always war against them 
with all your might. Throw dust lime in every 
hole you see. If they gnaw your floors, tar 
the places. 

Always manage to have most of your 
poultry hatch when the grass just begins to 
grow ; it is tender then, and will supply at 
least one-half their living, and it is so much 
help toward keeping them thrifty. 

The middle of April, in my latitude, is gen- 
erally the best time. The weather is so 
changeable before this, that they can not be 
allowed at large without a x uite a risk to their 
health. 

After you can control Gapes, Roup and 
Cholera, wet weather is your greatest draw- 
back. In every thing you do, always look 
ahead. Be prepared for all emergencies that 
may arise. You should always have a dry 
knoll for each coop, high ground, with a board 
bottom in wet weather. A V shaped coop 
most farmers use. A few clap-boards on the 
ground, then set your coop on them, with a 
little straw over the boards, makes a splendid 
place for them. You can move the coops oc- 
casionally. 

Another good plan is this ; say you pail a 



1 6 IF YOU ARE A FARMER. 

piece of high, dry ground twenty or fifty feet 
square ; drain all round outside of the fence 
with a deep ditch, enough shallow drains 
through it to thoroughly drain the inside. 
You can place your movable or V coops in 
it. Either confine your old hens in the coops 
or let them run out in the lot. Provide means 
for them all to keep dry. Here you can feed 
and water always. Build the fence so close 
that the little chicks can not get out, only as 
you let them from an opening beside their 
own coops ; this lot should be surrounded by 
one or more acres of grass. But mark this ; 
if you use a lot like this you must sweep the 
litter up and pile outside,— better than bone 
dust for your garden. 

In hot weather it is best to sweep every 
day. Reason : in hot weather all the feed 
left on the ground begins to ferment and de- 
cay ; taken into the crops of fowls, in this 
state, it acts as a poison. Under all circum- 
stances and conditions, never let your chick- 
ens out in the wet grass. No poultry, not 
even ducks, can be allowed to get all drab- 
bled in the grass ; the truth is, if you get any 
of them very wet, they seldom live ; if they 
accidentally get wet and you wish to save 
them, heat a flannel rag or cloth real hot, lap 
them up and lay where they will keep warm 
until dry. I have saved their lives in this 
way, when found floating in water, gasping 
for breath. By the way, never leave slop or 



IN WINDY WEATHER. I 7 

water of any kind where they can get drowned 
in it. Keep every thing of the kind covered. 

IN WINDY WEATHER, 

always furnish them a wind brake, — a board 
set up, — something to protect them ; even 
old fowls will hunt such protection ; and it 
chills young a great deal more than the old ; 
as they have nothing but " down," and that 
very short at the beginning. Your poultry, 
if exposed to the wind, are liable to take 
cramps, rheumatism, or probably to pine 
away with indigestion. 

All poultry should be protected from winds, 
night and day ; so you see^your perches should 
be protected, which you can not do if they 
are in trees. 

PROVIDE FOR COOL WEATHER. 

I have heard parents say, w T hen chided 
about exposing their children to cool, wet 
weather: " Oh ! we are raising them hardy — 
don't want any of your weak, sickly children/' 
Just keep an eye on those that are brought 
up in this way, and the large majority die be- 
fore reaching twenty, and but very few live 
to see forty years. 

The same principle is verified with your 
poultry. To retain health and thrift, they 
must be kept comfortable ; this you can do by 



1 8 SUNSHINE.. 

furnishing them with straw, boards, etc., to 
roost on ; stop the cracks, and, if very cold, 
throw old sacks, or a piece of carpet over 
their coop. 

Often during March and April, the sun 
shines warm but the air is so cool that the 
chicks can not enjoy the 

SUNSHINE. 

Wealthy people can build houses for them, 
with a sloping glass side, facing the south ; 
underneath this the chicks are quite comfort- 
able. 

But the large mass of poultry raisers are 
not wealthy. What can they do? A great 
deal with a little effort and small expense. 
A six-inch plank for the front or south side, 
an eighteen inch one for the back, as long as 
you wish, say twelve feet. Kentucky farmers 
have a " tobacco muslin," one yard wide ; the 
threads are light but strong, and wove very 
open. Depends upon the width of the mus- 
lin for the length of the end piece of the box. 
If the muslin is one yard wide, the end piece 
ought to be thirty-three inches long. Nail 
the narrow board to one end, and the wide 
one to the other. Slope the ends down from 
the eighteen inch board to the six inch. 

Every three feet nail a plasterer's lath on 
top. Over the top spread your muslin, tack 
your sides and ends, drawing it tight. 



SUNSHINE. 19 

When done it looks like the top of a hot- 
bed. Best to fasten together so it can be 
moved. Whenever you can, the ground be- 
ing dry enough to crumble, spade up a piece 
of high and dry ground — some place where the 
sun shines — then move your box on it; ar- 
range every thing so the slope or low side 
will be south. 

Rake the loose dirt until well pulverized ; 
then sow some wheat over it and rake it in. 
Provide one or more places in the back — - 
wide board — for them to get in and out — a 
three inch square sawed out of the bottom 
answers your purpose. Place the small coop 
so the young chicks can go from one to the 
other. To see the little ones use their feet 
and bills to get the wheat, will pay you for 
your trouble and expense. 

By spading and stirring, it may remain in 
one place a week or more. 

If the weather is wet, cover over with clap- 
boards or plank, raising the cover twelve 
inches high, so as to admit light, with a deep 
trench round outside to keep the inside dry, 
and you have a nice little poultry run y af- 
fording your little chicks their natural exer- 
cises. And by so doing, you add near one- 
third to their growth, and wonderfully to their 
health. You can have one, two feet or twenty 
feet long, just as you need. You can tack 
the muslin to a frame one inch thick and 
three inches wide, made the size of your box; 



20 SUNSHINE. 

fit it close and you can remove, rake and sow 
feed at your will. One twelve feet long will 
give fifty chicks a good start. 

This brings us to first of April. If you 
have been careless in your application of the 
Gape Preventive, you are sure to have a few 
gaping chicks; watch this gaping business 
closely. If you see or hear any of a flock 
sneeze, this is your time to cure it. I have 
experimented with success the past two years 
by mixing a tablespoonful of the Gape Pre- 
ventive in a pint of meal and middlings mixed 
with scalding water ; feed all chicks so af- 
fected. 

Even if you do not see any signs of gapes, 
it is a good feed for them once a week. Begin 
the application of the Gape Preventive to all 
your old poultry first of January, and keep it 
up every two weeks, until you get entirely 
clear of lice. If you do not. by April your 
early chicks will be full of them, and they 
will not thrive until you get clear of them. 
Furnish your hens that have broods a dust- 
ing place. 

Dig up a little loose dirt at different places, 
south side of buildings, fences, or coops, pul- 
verize, and they will soon rid the vermin from 
them. Remember, re-dig after a rain, as it 
packs very hard. 

This is near the time that you should sit 
the bulk of your hens. It is advisable for 
farmers to o*et as manv as thev expect to 



VIGILANCE. 2 1 

raise started at one time, and make it a busi- 
ness to attend to them for a short time. 

VIGILANCE 

Is the secret of success. On an average, 
farmers give less attention to poultry than 
any other stock. Consequence, raising poul- 
try is a failure, which entails a heavy loss in 
the way of furnishing calico, groceries, etc. 

I wish to impress this on your mind : noth- 
ing must be neglected, every thing must be 
done, and well done. You may know how to 
keep clear of the gapes, but if you fail to use 
the Gape Preventive, as directed, you will 
have the gapes in your flock. Even after 
they take it, which is your own carelessness, 
you can cure them ; but, if neglected, they die, 
and you lose the eggs, the feed they have 
eaten, and your time. 

The same principle holds good in roup and 
cholera, only the loss is so much more when 
they are grown. It is a shame to see whole 
flocks die, in a short time, with these diseases, 
especially so to persons that know they can 
be cured and prevented. 

Your coops and every thing you need should 
be provided in winter, or at least before you 
need them. While your flocks are young, 
they need almost ceaseless care ; your object 
should be not to lose one of them after they 
are hatched. 



2 2 WATERING. 

When five weeks' old they are not much 
trouble, if they have the range of a farm, 
and hawks do not keep them too close. At 
this age a feed in the early morning, of mid- 
dlings and meal mixed with milk, and a feed 
of all the corn they will eat when going to 
roost, is all they need. When of this age, if 
they roost in boxes or barrels, and you are a 
little careless in keeping them clean, the Red 
Lice will annoy them. Said lice never leave 
the box, but remain in the joints or cracks by 
the thousands. If you find them in a coop, 
get a pile of straw or shavings, set fire to 
them, and hold the coop in the blaze until the 
last one is destroyed. 

WATERING 

You would suppose that even a child could 
water chickens, but there are few adults who 
do it as it should be done. 

Cleanliness is the main point. The water 
should be clean and pure. The vessels kept 
clean at all times. And in cold weather the 
water should be given to them warm. For 
young chicks it should be kept in some shal- 
low vessel. Arrange so that they can not get 
into it. 

I prefer to water them in clean vessels, and 
in one place. If they are allowed to drink 
when and where they please, it seems they 



THEIR PERCHES. 23 

will be satisfied with the dirtiest, filthiest pud- 
dles to be found. 

They may devour all the filth of a garbage 
barrel if in a dry state— it seems to have no 
visible effect ; but let them be round your 
stables, barns or out-houses, drinking the 
water from filthy puddles when decomposi- 
tion is going on, and it is surprising how fast 
they become diseased, and often how deadly 
the poison is. 

My Cholera Preventive is based on the 
theory that the germs are mostly taken in 
their water, conducted through the system 
by the water, and are more readily destroyed 
by the same process. 

THEIR PERCHES. 

It is of the utmost importance to have a 
suitable place prepared for them to roost in, 
as soon as they are large enough. I always 
prefer to get them up off the ground just as 
soon as I can. Better for their health, and 
no danger from coons, skunks, etc. 

I use sheds built twenty-five feet long, ten 
feet wide, twelve feet high at front ; back eight 
feet high, pitch roof, — sloping from front to 
back, — sided up with plank on end, and one 
inch apart. 

Front facing south-east, and sided down to 
within five feet of the ground ; floor raised 
with earth, and deep ditch round outside. 



24 THEIR PERCHES. 

The perches are two by three inch scantling, 
eight feet long. All hung level, tarred ropes, 
about five feet from the floor. See you get 
them level ; if one is a little higher than the 
other, the entire lot will want to get on the 
highest pole. You can take two plank half 
inch thick, fourteen inches wide, and nail to- 
gether V shaped. Hang one under each pole, 
sprinkle a little loose dirt and lime over it, 
also over their droppings, every day or two. 
Empty this into a barrel kept in the dry, at 
least once every week. When you want to 
use it, empty the barrel out in a smooth place, 
take an old-fashioned flail and pulverize it, 
and it is far better for any thing you wish to 
plant than "bone dust" can be made. If 
you never tried it, you will be surprised at the 
amount fifty head will yield. If you have but 
a few you may dispense with the boards, and 
keep loose, dry dirt, and throw over their 
droppings every morning, but then you must 
be sure and clean every thing out and sweep 
clean once a week in hot weather. If you 
do not, it will take quite a lot of lice exter- 
minator to get rid of the lice. 

Place # your perches so they can not reach 
and pluck one another. 

Before the hen weans her brood place a 
couple of short planks on the tops of your 
perches, and stand a wide plank up so the 
little ones can walk up. After she spends a 
night here she will not trouble you; and when 



A SHADE PLOW YOUR RUNS. 25 

weaned, they are all just where you want 
them. 

In our climate, generally from April to Sep- 
tember the weather is warm and often ex- 
tremely hot, therefore it is necessary to pre- 
pare 

A SHADE 

In or about your runs. I prefer currant 
bushes. They may be set in nooks, corners, 
and out-of-the-way places, not occupying 
much room, but affording a splendid shade, 
and a fruit that poultry seem to relish. 

Sunflowers are splendid — seed may be 
planted from March to July. Their wide leaf 
shade is what you want, and the seeds are 
one of the best winter feeds we get. You 
can plant any place, as they are not choice as 
to soil. It is best, when stalks get about five 
feet high, to pull the bud out of the top. 
This causes it to throw out sprangles at every 
leaf, which gives you more shade, and just 
as many seed. Grape-vines make a splendid 
shade. 

PLOW YOUR RUNS. 

Here is one fruitful cause of different dis- 
eases. Poultry are kept and allowed to run 
on the same ground, in the same place, for' 
years. The land becomes rich and foul with 
weeds. I know farms that poultry have used 
fifty years along the same fences and around 



26 PLOW YOUR RUNS. 

the same buildings, and the land has never 
been stirred. 

This will not do, as risk to health is too 
great. If your inclosure is small, spade some 
portion of it daily. Keep the litter spaded 
under or swept off. If on a farm, plow the 
nooks and corners up in February, and plant 
in potatoes. This gives you a good crop of 
potatoes, fresh plowed land for your poultry, 
when it is most needed, and continues until 
your potatoes are " laid by," and furnishes a 
shade when they most need it. Dig the po- 
tatoes early. In July or August sow the 
patch in rye, keep your poultry up till it 
gets up, and you have the very best winter 
pasture for them. And you can repeat this 
from year to year successfully, and have fresh 
land all the time and good crops. 

If your runs are set in bushes use your 
spading fork, hoe and rake ; get it stirred in 
the spring of the )ear, and it should be done 
in the fall. 

I prefer to have patches of potatoes and 
corn close to the yard fence rather than un- 
sightly weeds. 

This brings us to June. Sometimes you 
wish to sit hens in this month ; but here is the 
old adage, " hatches in June not worth a spoon; 
and in July, not worth a fly." 

JUNE HATCHES, 

I find, are just as successful as April, if han- 



JUNE HATCHES, 2-7 

died right, and I find my best spring and 
summer layers are always hatched in 

June, v 

Those hatched in March and April will lay 
from September to real cold weather in the 
winter. Those hatched in June, begin in 
January, and lay all spring and summer. All 
that is required is plenty of dirt — a thick sod — 
under the eggs ; and if the weather is dry and 
hot sprinkle the nest so that it is continually 
damp"; when taken from the nest the chicks 
must be kept in a cool, dry shade, and fur- 
nished with plenty of fresh water as required 
in Gape Preventive recipe. Extra care is re- 
quired in feeding. If they get a little too 
much sloppy feed it ruins them. If it is dry 
weather they can be allowed to roost any 
place on the ground. If they must be con- 
fined, be sure they have a good shade, plenty 
of dry feed, and all the sand and gravel they 
will use. If you have a corn field close to 
the house, and a shade tree in it, place your 
movable coop under the tree, and it will sur- 
prise you how your June and July chicks will 
grow. In an orchard is a very good place, 
but you must not let them out until the morn- 
ing dew is oft. 

DURING HOT WEATHER 

You must be on the lookout for cholera in 
your early hatches, particularly if wet or clamp. 



28 FEEDING ALL THEY WILL EAT. 

All filth must be removed and noxious smells 
abated. Never let a week go by unless you 
feed the mixture. It is a tonic, and it is a 
preventive of this dreaded disease. It is now 
near the moulting season. If your poultry 
become diseased during the hot weather it 
retards their moulting, — sheding, — and will 
cause you loss in the end. Another thing to 
be looked after from June to October, is the 
feed they get from the fields. The seeds of 
a great many weeds are getting hard now, 
and they greedily eat them up. 

The trouble is. the seeds are not dry. New 
wheat, oats, corn — in fact, any new grain — is 
almost sure to produce diarrhea and in the 
end cholera of the worst type. 

If you follow the instructions given in the 
recipe, you will have no trouble. You can get 
your February and March hatches through, 
and the pullets be laying by the first to the 
tenth of September, provided you have been 

FEEDING ALL THEY WILL EAT. 

I have known some successful farmers to 
keep five to six head of horses, feed all they 
will eat, curry, rub, etc., half of the time; 
work them — well, it may be once a month. 
If John or Lucy wants to ride one three or 
four miles; it is a hard matter to get Pa's con- 
sent; he is so afraid they will be abused, etc. 
Now this man sees money ahead in his horses, 



FEEDING ALL THEY WILL EAT. 29 

but he will walk from the barn to the house 
and find his better-half feeding the chickens, 
and will probably say: "I would not feed 
those chickens so much ; I tell you, feed is 
scarce and high ! it does not pay ! Well, I 
declare ! feeding them wheat, and it selling 
at $1.50 per bushel! I don't see any money 
ahead in this poultry." 

At the same time ioo hens, properly fed 
and managed, will yield him more clear cash 
than he can make on any two grown horses, 
with all his petting and rubbing down, and 
the cost of the two and their feed is no com- 
parison. 

I wish to make this point clear ; too many 
farmers pet one kind of stock and abuse 
others. You should make this a rule ; if you 
can not feed and care for stock, as it should 
be done, sell it at once, and avoid getting 
" stock poor." 

Provide pasture and feed, and keep your 
pigs growing until they enter the slaughter 
yard. They are healthier, less trouble, and 
the meat is better. If you have too many to 
provide for in this way, sell the surplus and 
provide feed with the proceeds. If you keep 
poultry, provide every needed accommoda- 
tion for their thrift and comfort. To make it. 
a success you must do it. No need of ex- 
pensive quarters. 

You must provide a variety of feed, better 
to raise it ; but if you have not that which you 



30 MOULTING. 

need, do not be afraid to buy it. One dollar 
spent in this way will generally bring three to 
five back. 

When you feed your poultry, do it liberally. 
Do not call thirty or forty hens around you, 
to give them a grain of corn each at night, 
but throw them all they will eat. A hen is a 
machine ; if you furnish her the proper feed, 
and keep her in a comfortable place, she must 
lay eggs. But if any thing is lacking she will 
not lay. 

MOULTING 

is a natural process of annual occurrence. A 
great many of your fowls may not pass the 
season of moulting safely. 

Early hatches generally do, if kept thrifty, 
but later ones often are exposed to severe 
tests. The summer moult is usually gradual, 
but few feathers falling at a time, and these 
being at once replaced. On the contrary, 
when the moult happens in autumn, the feath- 
ers fall faster, and are not so speedily re- 
placed. The consequence is, w T hen the cold, 
chilly winds of autumn come, they are almost 
naked, and must suffer if exposed to the 
weather. 

If you have a poultry house with glass front, 
put them in it, or you can keep them in a 
muslin coop, as described for a run in this 
book. 



CHOLERA. 31 

Moulting always occurs to wild birds, in a 
state of nature, precisely when their food is 
most plenty. This implies that they should 
be fed liberally if confined. 

Put wheat in a pan, and dry it out is the 
best feed I ever found for them at this time. 
Middlings and meal mixed with sweet milk 
are equally good. Their allowance of pepper 
should be doubled now, and continue until 
flush feathered. Any sweet substance is good 
for them now. 

But your greatest enemy, during this pe- 
riod, is 

CHOLERA. 

For symptoms and causes of both hog and 
chicken cholera, read my circular, sent free 
to all. 

This most fatal disease has spread over a 
vast area of the United States. The germs 
live in the water. They blow from place to 
place. You may walk in a run where it is, 
ride fifty miles and enter a run where there 
is none, and the dirt sticking to your feet will 
spread the disease to this flock at once. 

Freezing does not destroy them, neither 
does dry weather; damp, warm weather is the 
time they are most poisonous. From August 
to November you must be continually on the 
lookout for cholera. Whenever you find any 
of their droppings of the dark, slimy, cholera 
appearance, you must use your preventive 



• - cholera; 

freely, and be sure that every one of them 
gets their portion. You can use it in their 
drinking water or mixed in their feed. 

The charcoal feed should be used freely 
for hogs and poultry during the autumn. 

Now I have an object in cautioning you 
thus ; if you let the cholera or roup get a start 
it affects your whole flock more or less. Those 
that do not die will not lay — they are half 
sick all the while. Your March pullets are 
now old enough to lay. 

From September to May, eggs are always 
a good price and ready sale. So far it has 
all been expense and no income ; now we want 
to invert this ; we want a large income on 
small outlay. 

But I hear you say, hold on, old fellow, you 
might be mistaken ; probably my hens are not 
of the right breed or stock ! How about this, 
anyway? But little difference. A hen is a 
machine, of course some are of stronger vitality 
than others ; some just adapted to lay an egg 
every day at least nine months in the year — 
the non-setting breeds — others to laying an 
egg every day for thirteen to fifteen days, 
then they get feverish and wish to sit. These 
are called the sitting breeds. Your early 
pullets of these breeds will not be very hard 
to break of this fever. The instructions that 
follow all depend upon your poultry house 
being comfortable or not. If it is, they will 
pay you well to provide every thing named 



TO COMPEL HENS TO LAY EGGS. 33 

for feed. In fact, they will lay every little 
warm spell, all fall and winter, if so fed. 

TO COMPEL HENS TO LAY EGGS. 

Chemically speaking the shell of an egg 
consists chiefly of carbonate of lime, similar 
to chalk, with a very small quantity of phos- 
phate of lime and animal mucus. 

The white of an egg — albumen — is without 
taste or smell ; composed of eighty parts of 
water, fifteen and a half parts of albumen, 
and four and a half parts of mucus, besides 
giving traces of soda, benzoin acid and sul- 
phureted hydrogen gas. The yolk has an in- 
sipid, bland, oily taste. It consists, chemi- 
cally, of water, oil, albumen, and gelatine. 

Now your poultry must have something to 
form the shell. Oyster shells head the list. 
Nothing furnishes, so easily and surely, the 
requisite material for egg-shell as these nat- 
ural productions of the sea. You can procure 
them in large towns at your restaurants, as 
they are glad to give them away. 

Mussel-shells found along rivers and large 
creeks are splendid. I have always used those 
found on the shore of the Ohio River. 

Bones of any kind are a real necessity. 

It is preferable to get your bones of your 

butchers, but ground bones are just as good, 

if they are not chemically destroyed. In their 

raw state they are good ; but by roasting them 
2 



34 TO COMPEL HENS TO LAY EGGS. 

until they are brown and brittle, you have 
almost the genuine egg-shell, and you save 
the hen an endless amount of grinding. A 
large stone in your yard, a hammer in your 
hand, is all the mill you need to grind them. 
Keep gravel, — if no gravel break stone in 
small pieces, — with your shells ; add good, 
clean, coarse sand sprinkled over all. 

During winter, while they are confined in 
your houses, a portion of bone and gravel 
should be broken daily. Scraps of old plas- 
tering are good. Keep in a box and stir every 
day or two. 

Albumen — the white of the egg — is found, 
almost in its pure state, in fresh, sweet milk, 
and in wheat, oats, rye, buckwheat, barley 
and corn, in the order as named. Corn fur- 
nishes, with the other grain, oil and gelatine. 

Understand, while at large they get, of 
their own accord, plenty of seeds, weeds, etc., 
that furnish a great portion of the items 
named. The bone and shells they are not 
apt to get, and they seldom ever can find al- 
bumen enough. 

Now this makes plain what we are to feed. 
It matters not what we have to feed, if our 
hens lay eggs they must have the wherewith 
to produce the egg. We are now ready to 
begin with our 

SPRING PULLETS. 

We have been feeding dry corn through 



SPRING PULLETS. 35 

the hot weather, and depending on their for- 
aging the balance of their grub from the 
farm. 

If well quartered, as soon as a cool night or 
two comes, they begin to get fat. If they are 
in a healthy state, their feathers are glossy, 
laying smooth and close, their combs enlarge, 
assume a deep-red color. If their movements 
are slow and clumsy, they are too fat to lay. 
If so feed but little corn, and mostly oats, for 
a week or ten days. Oats are always the 
best feed in the fall and early spring. They 
will tone up and set a fat hen to laying faster 
than anything I ever tried. After your pul- 
lets begin, if they have the range of a farm, 
but little feed is required. A small feed of 
middlings, — they are rich with albumen, — and 
meal, mixed with sweet milk — scalding water 
will answer very well — but the milk answers 
the purpose of their meat diet, so essential 
to their continuous laying, and it is the only 
convenient meat diet at the command of farm- 
ers. Their feed should be seasoned with pep- 
per freely. This is something — pepper — that 
we must always supply them, as we have 
nothing that fills its place except a kind of 
wild tongue grass that generally starts in 
your runs or wherever your poultry uses. 

For a few days some of your pullets will 
only lay every other day. This is generally 
caused by their not eating enough substance 
to produce the shell, or a lack of the prop- 



36 WINTER. 



erties of albumen in their feed. Put a little 
lime in their drinking water, or mix a little in 
warm feed for the shell. Feed more wheat 
for the albumen. 

Now this must be looked after every day. 
If you fail to furnish the essential they will 
fail to produce the eggs. This system of feed- 
ing lasts until the frost and freezes have des- 
troyed their feed in the fields, 

We must now begin to prepare for 

WINTER. 

In our climate, where we are subject to so 
many extremes of heat and cold, poultry 
raising becomes an intricate business. It 
requires practical experience, energy and 
promptness of action to make it a success. 
The amount of cold and exposure they can 
endure is surprising, but while so exposed 
they do not lay eggs. 

So it is of the utmost importance to provide 
them just as comfortable quarters or houses 
as you can. 

I find a very good one is to select ground 
high and well drained, build as large as you 
want, set facing south-east. I build them 
plank on end, cracks closely battoned, shingle 
roof, good ventilators in it, dirt floor, perches 
as described, and the front or south-east side 
with plenty of glass windows in it — any old 
sash will do. If you keep fowls that have 



ROAD DUST. 37 

large combs, dig a five-foot cellar under the 
house, to use in extreme cold weather, then 
you must have a floor on joists over the cellar. 
In warm weather keep plenty of dry dirt 
thrown over the floor. When extreme cold 
weather comes remove this floor, joist, etc., 
and lower your perches to within three feet 
of the bottom of the cellar. Be sure the cel- 
lar is drained all round next to the wall, that 
the middle is the highest, and the floor cov- 
ered with sand and gravel at least six inches 
deep. Just as spring comes, remove this 
pravel floor out of the cellar and replace 
your upper floor. 

If you arrange the cellar so as to have it 
ventilated with a window to admit sunlight, 
and keep it clean, you have one of the best 
hatching rooms that I know of. Keep a dust- 
box for them to wallow in wherever they are, 
which must be refilled when needed all 
through the winter. You should always 
gather 

ROAD DUST 

In the fall of the year. Get it any place where 
you can. The best comes from turnpikes, as 
it is mixed with sand. Left in old barrels 
and in the dry, you can use as you need. 
You must have it; they are not apt to be 
thrifty without it. 



38 SAVE WINTER FEED. 

Save your winter feed in the fall. When 
you thrash your wheat, save all the heavy 
chaff, keep dry, and throw a little in your runs, 
or sheds, or in your cellar every day, when 
confined. This gives employment and exer- 
cise, as they will be continually scratching and 
picking, which is as essential as to have them 
eat. With the large breeds, in order to get 
them to take the needed exercise, you may 
have to scatter their grain feed over the chaff, 
so they will have to scratch to get it. 

Save your broom-corn and cane-seed for 
them. Buckwheat, millet, or seed of any kind, 
save and have ready. 

Corn, throughout the winter, fed hot, is the 
principal feed. 

Next of importance is the warm soft feed 
described. Then you want a feed of wheat, 
oats, etc. A mixture of any seeds you have ; 
the more variety the better. All of your 
feed should be warmed and fed hot, limed, 
etc., as described in recipes. 

The corn is better if boiled, but it must be 
boiled dry, not fed watery. In feeding soft 
feed never throw it down in the dirt and filth. 
Take a piece of plank one inch thick, twelve 
to fourteen inches square. Nail strips — plas- 
terers' lath, one and a half inches wide — around 
it ; any piece of board can be made to answer, 
and save your feed and the health of your 
fowls. 

In extreme cold weather you must use extra 



SAVE WINTER FEED. 39 

care in providing them gravel and charcoal. 
Feed regularly and systematically, giving all 
the variety possible. Hang small sheaves of 
oats in your houses, just high enough to com- 
pel them to jump to get the heads. Bundles 
of clover hay, or even corn fodder, are better 
than nothing. 

Save plenty of turnips, cabbage, onions, 
any thing green, and feed them in cold weather. 
One of my principal green feeds, in winter 
and spring, is small potatoes. 

When potatoes are dug, always save every 
one of them, if not as large as partridge eggs ; 
they are one of the best poultry feeds to be 
had ; they seem to compel hens to lay eggs. 

They are brought to the barn when dry, 
all sorted out. The small ones are placed in 
the cellar where we can get them any time. 
Just as soon as the hens begin to miss their 
green feed I begin to feed them in small 
quantities, and keep it up all winter and 
spring. I bought thirty bushel of ''refused 
potatoes," from a friend, that proved to be 
the cheapest feed I could get for them. I boil 
them until dry, mash and mix with meal and 
middlings, and feed warm. Another winter 
food is butchers' scraps ; the waste of the 
shops can be had very cheap, cooked and fed 
in small quantities; nothing any better ; when 
you butcher sheep, hogs, etc., save every 
thing for your poultry. 

Cracklings, even if pressed by pork com- 



r*p NESTS MOVABLE COOPS. 

panies, are good and cheap feed. Keep them 
in a box so they can pluck them all winter. All 
these feeds are necessary, if your poultry are 
confined and must be fed occasionally in the 
winter. 

Now if you feed as indicated, and keep 
the hens comfortable, they must lay eggs — 
they can not help it ! 

NESTS. 

It is of the utmost importance that your 
poultry have good nests. When you make a 
nest, and get every thing ready to nail to- 
gether, make a thin plaster of lime, coal-oil 
and sulphur, saturate each joint of the box 
with this before nailing together. Always 
whitewash your nests in and outside ; add a 
little carbolic acid to the wash. Nests in the 
house should always be hang up. A very 
good one, for Leghorns, is twelve inches 
square, seven inches high — the sides — back 
end in center twelve inches high and sloped 
to the side and covered with half inch plank, 
being a small house when complete. The front 
end rounded out ten inches at the top to within 
three inches of the bottom, which is nailed 
on after the square is put together. For the 
larger breeds they should be in proportion 
but larger. 

MOVABLE COOPS. 

Even when I lived in a small town, I always 
felt the need of a good movable coop. On a 



MOVABLE COOPS. 4 1 

farm I could not do without them. I have ex- 
perimented a great deal and have settled down 
on the following as being the best. 

The scantling are all one and a half by 
two inches seasoned poplar. The object is to 
ha-ve it light. For the end pieces, cut the 
two bottom ones five leet long, the two top 
ones three feet ; cut the corner posts, four of 
them, twenty-six inches long, halve or notch 
the bottom pieces two inches from the end, 
and the top pieces at top. Fasten with strong 
nails. When done, they are wide at the bot- 
tom and narrow at the top. Now take your 
rails, any length you wish the coop to be — 
twelve feet long is right lor six hens. Fasten 
one at bottom and top of each one of your 
ends. You have a frame twelve feet long and 
five feet wide, on the ground, and only three 
feet wide at the top ; the top rails should be 
left out three inches for handles. The roof 
may be pitched back, or made so as to re- 
quire a board two feet lour inches long on 
each side, or it may be made fifteen inches 
high in center, above the square, a scantling- 
extending from end to end, and lathed the 
same as the sides. This is the best for tur- 
keys. Cover four leet in length for your 
perches. The coops can be made any height 
you desire. Cover with light clap-boards or 
shingles. Board the end and side up, or tack 
muslin on the end and sides to protect them 
while on the perches. 



42 MOVABLE COOP DIFFERENT BREEDS. 

The siding and cover should be light ma- 
terial. Under your cover, twelve inches from 
the bottom, put a scantling across for a roost ; 
make you a lath gate or door, hang with 
leather hinges, in the front end with a latch 
to keep it fastened. Furnish with a nest, set 
just inside the door, a drinking vessel of some 
kind, and you have one of the best and most 
convenient coops I ever saw. 

If you want your chicks raised away from 
the house, move the coop where you want it; 
leave the hen and chicks in it ; feed and water 
is all the trouble you will have, and it is proof 
against coons, skunks, etc. Then you can 
move it to fresh ground every day. 

THE DIFFERENT BREEDS. 

Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as 
a pure bred fowl. There are those that have 
been bred " straight " for many years, and 
now produce chicks like parents, that by com- 
mon consent we call pure breed, but they 
have relatives, and not very far distant, that 
go by other names. Take our Brahmas and 
Cochins — Light, Dark, White, Black, Par- 
tridge and Buff— are all understood to have 
come from the old Cochin China, or Shanghai, 
first imported from China about 1847. For 
several years they were bred all sorts and 
colors — any thing for size ; finally " fanciers" 
began to select and breed for certain colors, 



ON BREEDING FOWLS. 43 

combs, shapes, etc.» until we now have seven 
recognized " pure breeds " from one common 
parentage, in a little over thirty-five years. 

Again, foreign blood is introduced often for 
a specific purpose. If you mix Bjack Span- 
ish blood with Black Hamburgs, it gives more 
size, and otherwise improves it. Of course 
it takes several years to get the new family 
14 toned down/' etc. 

By common consent we call a breed pure 
when it reproduces itself. The greater the 
number and the truer the reproduction, the 
more valuable the strain. 

ON BREEDING FOWLS. 

-• 

In all works treating of poultry, which have 
fallen under my observation, there is a la- 
mentable deficiency in information respecting 
the important subject of breeding. When 
the topic is touched upon, amid meager de- 
tails and questionable principles, there is a 
loose and indefinite use of terms, which serve 
only to distract and confuse the inquirer. 

Fowl-breeders have never been forward to 
communicate such information as is derived 
from their experience ; the amateur seldom 
feels any inducement to do so ; and the breed- - 
er, whose only object is profit, is well con- 
tent to preserve his secrets and secure his 
gain. 

The various kinds of breeding are denom- 



44 ON BREEDING FOWLS. 

inated "in and in" "close]' "mixed' and "high 
breeding'' When we speak of " in and in ' 
breeding, the meaning is simply that the 
breeding is by commerce, between individuals 
of the same brood ; or, between brother and 
sister. " Close" breeding, is by commerce 
between the parent and his offspring. "Mixed' 
breeding is the connection between different 
breeds or varieties. 

Crossing breeds. To insure successful and 
beneficial crossing of distinct breeds, in order 
to produce a new and valuable variety, the 
breeder must have an acurate knowledge of 
the laws of procreation, and the varied influ- 
ences of parents upon their offspring. 

All the breeds in this country are crosses, 
produced originally by accident or design. 
Crossing does not necessarily produce a 
breed ; but it always produces a variety, and 
that variety becomes a breed only when there 
is sufficient stamina to make a distinctive race, 
and continue a progeny with the uniform or 
leading characteristics of its progenitors. 

High breeding. When uniformity of plum- 
age can be effected in different varieties with- 
out sacrificing the health and vigor of the 
race, it is desirable, and, in many instances, 
it can be accomplished satisfactorily. 

Real high breeding consists in the selec- 
tion of parent stock of the same race, perfect 
in all the general characteristics, and of re- 



ON BREEDING FOWLS. 45 

mote consanguinity. This should be resorted 
to yearly to secure the best results. 

If a breed is pure the progeny resembles 
the progenitors in almost every respect, in 
plumage, general outline, form habits, etc. 
They look identically the same. But when 
the blood is mixed the plumage will vary 
widely or slightly, according to circumstances, 
although the general characteristics may re- 
main the same The close breeding, to which 
so many resort, generally results in absolute 
deterioration of the breed in important re- 
spects. 

Pigeons seem to require " in and in " breed- 
ing. The female lays two eggs, from these 
two eggs a male and female is produced. 
They again breed "in and in," and so con- 
tinue for hundreds of years without visible 
deterioration. They seem to be perfect of 
their kind, or pure breed, never varying ex- 
cept in crossing, and never degenerating ex- 
cept by confinement. 

The rule seems to be with the feathered 
tribe, "close" breeding, and occasionally "in 
and in." This seems to be the laws of nature, 
as with the wild turkey. In their natural 
state they resort to "close " and " in and in" 
breeding ; still the race does not change in 
appearance or degenerate. The reason is 
the breed is pure. You may compare tens, 
hundreds or thousands of these noble birds 
of the forest, you can not discover the least 



46 PRESERVING PURE BREEDS. 

dissimilarity — all look alike — they always have 
and always will. These are changed or de- 
teriorated only by crossing or confinement. 

The majority of our breeds degenerate rap- 
idly upon breeding "close" or "in and in/ 5 
from the fact that they are not perfect of their 
kind, that is, our breeds yet show their mixed 
blood and the breed degenerates in propor- 
tion as the blood is mixed. So all this "close" 
and " in and in ' breeding should be avoided 
as much as possible by changing your cocks 
each spring from one strain to another. 

These remarks are equally applicable to 
quadrupeds. If the breed is pure, as with the 
rabbit, you can breed " close " or " in and in," 
with impunity, and nature seems to favor the 
process ; they uniformly resort to that manner 
of breeding and the race remains precisely 
the same through all generations, unless they 
are crossed or confined; but if the animals 
are of mixed blood, as is the case with cattle, 
horses, etc., such breeding must be carefully 
avoided or the race soon runs out — first de- 
generating in size, then producing cripples, 
and deformed offspring, and then terminating 
in impotency and sterility. 

PRESERVING PURE BREEDS. 

If you have pure stock and wish to keep it 
so, they must be separated and kept so ; not 
allowed to marry or intermarry with other 



PRESERVING PURE BREEDS. 47 

stock. If your White Leghorn cock gets out 
and marries a Brown Leghorn pullet they are 
both " mixed," which is apt to show occasion- 
ally for the next ten to thirteen days. 

I have been frequently asked, " when should 
the different breeds be separated, in order to 
preserve the breed pure?" Pullets that I 
breed from are always kept away from the 
cocks until the eggs are needed. For ama- 
teur breeders and farmers, the first of Janu- 
ary is early enough. 

I see there is quite a difference of opinion, 
even with fanciers on this subject. I know 
several that claim two days to be long enough. 
My tests for years prove to me this : the sec- 
ond egg may be pure, the fifth or thirteenth 
may be mixed. The mixed eggs will show 
as late as the thirteenth egg after the mixing. 
This has happened over and over with me. 

When a valuable breed is produced by ac- 
cident or design, it should be preserved, and 
the subsequent breeding should continue from 
that stock ; if otherwise there is no certainty 
of the purity of the blood of the new breed, 
for it does not follow that a different parent- 
age, though of the same name or original breed 
precisely, will produce the same new breed, 
or any thing resembling it. In order to pro-, 
duce pure breeds the breeding must continue 
from the original stock, carefully avoiding 
" close " and " in and in " breeding. Therefore 
the breeding must continue from the original 



48 PRESERVING PURE BREEDS. 

stock obtained by accident. Such breeding pro- 
duces the leading characteristics of the differ- 
ent breeds with great uniformity, and the genu- 
ineness of the breed can not be doubted. 

In order to produce a good cross the par- 
entage should be healthy, and from healthy 
races, not dissimilar in general make up. The 
main points are: Are the fowls large, fine- 
fleshed, gentle and domestic in their habits, 
good layers, of rich and well-flavored eggs, 
close sitters, careful nurses, etc., and sym- 
metrical conformation and gaudy plumage, 
are general accompaniments to the foregoing 
essential prerequisites. The size of the leg 
should always be looked to, to judge accur- 
ately as to purity of blood. If the leg is 
large for the breed, you can rely upon the 
purity of the^blood, the fineness of the flesh; 
but if the legs are smaller than most others 
of the same breed, rely upon it the fowl is 
of deteriorated blood. The very best fowls 
of any breed should always be selected for 
crossing or general breeding, otherwise the 
breed will degenerate. 

The quality — that is the finest, juciest and 
richest of flavor — of domestic fowls, is of 
much more importance than their size, and I 
reject all coarse-meated fowls, however large 
they may be. It is not difficult to discrimin- 
ate between coarse and fine fowls. When 
chickens, if the down is straight and stands 
out, the body and limbs loosely jointed, the 



PRESERVING PURE BREEDS. 49 

meat is coarse ; but if the down is glossy, ly- 
ing close to the body, the body and limbs 
compactly formed, the meat is fine, and, 
when grown, if the fowl is light in weight in 
proportion to its size, the flesh will be coarse ; 
if heavy the flesh will be fine. If the meat is 
fine, the bones are fine and so are the feath- 
ers. The color of the legs, too, is quite an 
item in judging the quality of fowls. Other 
things being equal, the clearest and deepest 
colored legs, for the variety, are the best ; 
generally dark-legged fowls have the finest 
flesh, and are the most hardy. Turkeys, 
which have the finest flesh of any fowl of their 
size, have black legs ; pheasants, partridges 
and quails, all of which are very fine fleshed 
fowls, have dark legs. I do not wish to be 
understood to say that all dark-legged fowls 
are fine, or that all yellow or white-legged 
ones are coarse; but I do say that the deep- 
est or most solid color which pertains to the 
breed, indicates the finest fowl. The color of 
the feathers, too, has more or less to do with 
the quality of the fowl. Some breeds have 
much more brilliant plumage than others, but 
when I speak of the brilliancy of the plumage, 
I mean in comparison with others of the same 
breed. If you select a fowl of rich and glossy 
plumage, its legs will be a deep color, as com- 
pared with others of the same breed, and its 
quality will excel. 

If the object in view is to breed a single 



50 PRESERVING PURE BREEDS. 

variety to perfection, the first requisite is to 
procure fowls of pure blood and possessing 
all the characteristics of their breed. Your 
time and labor are lost unless a pure speci- 
men of his variety is selected for whatever 
imperfection exists is likely to be perpetu- 
ated in the progeny. You must look to 
plumage, size and form, in making selection 
either of cock or pullet, and those are pre- 
ferable which are hatched earliest in the year. 
The age of the fowls is a matter of consider- 
able importance, and though it is true that a 
pullet will lay the greatest number of eggs 
in her first year, yet experimental tests de- 
monstrate, that the chickens hatched from 
the second year's eggs are more vigorous 
and hardy. The above rule applies to cocks 
as well as hens. 

An error is often committed by giving too 
many hens to one cock, which results in 
weakly and otherwise deteriorated progeny. 
Not over six hens should ever be allowed in 
one harem. If the quality of the breed is a 
matter of interest, three would be the better 
number. 

In breeding time great cleanliness should 
be observed in the lodging of fowls. In all 
my varied experience I never saw or tried a 
better plan than the 4 ' movable coops/' de- 
scribed on page 40. Just place them on a 
nice grassy plot, and you can have your breed- 
ing stock on fresh ground every day and they 



KEEP PURE BREEDS. 5 I 

will be clean and nice. I find the non-sitting 
breeds lay every day ; that the sitting breeds 
do a great deal better, as changing their 
locality seems to check the incubation fever. 

Their food during breeding time should be 
a variety and nutritious, but be sure they 
have plenty of animal and green food. You 
must arrange so as to have no intermixture 
of different breeds. A ceaseless vigilance in 
this respect is the price of success. If you 
do this you may rest in perfect security that 
your anticipations will be fully realized. 

To preserve the purity of any breed so 
that " like will produce like," in appearance 
and properties, is of the highest importance — 
is, in fact, the aim of the scientific breeder. 

EVERY FARMER SHOULD KEEP PURE BREEDS AND 
BECOME BREEDERS. 

The first of January place in a seperate 
room a cock and two or three of your best 
White Leghorn hens ; in another the same 
of Plymouth Rocks. Furnish plenty of every 
thing needed for feed, etc. By first of Feb- 
ruary their eggs, if kept strictly separate, are 
pure. As soon as the weather is warm enough 
you can place them in a movable coop on a 
grassy lawn, and by covering the sides with 
cheap muslin, they can generally remain out 
after first of March. Save the eggs and sit 
no others. In this way you can have plenty of 
pure breeds, just as good as any fancier, — in 



52 TO MECHANICS. 

fact better, as your stock have unlimited 
range. You can enlarge this plan to accom- 
modate all you wish to care for. 

TO MECHANICS. 

I was raised and lived on a farm until I was 
twenty-two years old. I then lived in a small 
village twenty-six years, a shoemaker by 
trade. I fenced off a lot one hundred feet 
long and thirty feet wide. On this lot I had 
a stable fourteen by sixteen feet, a shed back 
of it fourteen by twelve feet ; a poultry house 
eleven by twelve feet ; the lot pailed in with 
pailing twelve feet high. I always kept a 
good cow and fed her well ; she paid for her 
feed — by selling milk — and kept our family 
in plenty of the best of butter and all the 
milk we wished for our own use. 

After I learned how to keep clear of gapes, 
roup and cholera, I bought a White Leghorn 
cock and four hens, that cost me a trifle over 
$45 when they began laying. As long as I 
lived there I bred these Leghorns, and kept 
a strict account of every cent I paid for feed 
and all I received for eggs. We always used 
all the eggs and eat all the chickens we 
wanted for our own use, for which we allow 
nothing, and still these same Leghorns cleared 
of all expenses, over $100 per annum. Sev- 
eral winters I kept fifty hens, and they laid 
eggs right along, which were often sold 
forty cents per doz. Then I made money by 



LAYING. 53 

advertising and selling not giving away. It 
was a pleasant time to take care of them, 
affording me recreation, giving needed exer- 
cise. I had a hobby, — and but few succeed 
without one — and it was a pleasure. 

By just a little effort and a good share of 
perseverence, many a mechanic can do just as 
well and not miss the time. 

LAYING. 

It seems a providential arrangement, in be- 
half of man, that domestic poultry are en- 
dowed with so great fecundity. The ordinary 
productiveness of a single hen is astonishing. 
Frequent instances have occurred of hens 
laying three hundred and twenty -five eggs 
annually, while two hundred is the average 
number, on an average amount of feed. I 
find no difficulty in getting the non-sitting 
breeds to average three hundred eggs annu- 
ally, fed and cared for as herein described. 
I always breed from my best every-day layers 
of the sitting breeds. I find this makes quite 
a difference in the yield of eggs. 

Undoubtedly much depends on surrounding 
circumstances as to the laying qualities of 
hens. Climate has a great influence ; also 
their lodging, food and care bestowed on them. 

There seems to be naturally two periods 
of the year in which fowls lay, early in the 
spring and in summer; and this fact would 



54 MOULTING. 

seem to indicate that if they were left to 
themselves, like wild birds, they would bring 
forth two broods in a year. But under our 
system of feeding and breeding, we have 
changed all this. We now have them to lay 
daily, until molting causes them to cease. 
This process begins in August, and continues 
one, two and sometimes three months. It is 
the constitutional effect, which attends the be- 
ginning, continuance and consequences of 
this period, which prevents their laying. Un- 
til its very close, when the entire coat of new 
feathers replaces the old ones, the wasting of 
the nutritive juices, which are yielded by 
the blood for the express purpose of pro- 
moting this growth, is a great drain upon their 
system. This makes it plain why the consti- 
tutional forces which would otherwise assist 
in forming the Qgg y are rendered inoperative. 
The older a hen is the later in the season she 
always moults. As pullets do not moult the 
first year, they begin laying about the time 
your hens quit; so they are your main de- 
pendence for eggs from middle of August to 
middle of January. (Pullets referred to here, 
must be hatched in February or March, and 
well fed and housed.) From January on your 
two-year old hens and later pullets will be 
laying. 

I repeat here that " what you feed," is the 
main point in getting them to lay. In zvinter 
you must supply -animal food in abundance, 



LAYING. 55 

and all the material they require for forma- 
tion of the shell. In spring, if at large, they 
will find a portion of such food, but still they 
will not get enough of shell material— they 
require a large amount of both varieties of 
feed. During spring, keep them on dry 
ground, and not exposed to the wind. Have 
every thing well drained, so they will not be 
drinking out of every little filthy puddle of 

water. 

Summer Laying.— My late hatches (August 
and September) are my best summer layers ; 
if at large, require but little feed, but if con- 
fined their supply of animal and albumen must 
not be neglected. See that they are provided 
a good shade and plenty of cool water. They 
generally lay until the first of September ; be- 
fore this your spring pullets are laying. So 
this system provides you eggs during the 
whole year. Sometimes your hens are too 
fat to lay, feeding oats remedies this. Often 
you may feed wheat, oats, corn, charcoal and 
every thino- you can command, and get no 
eggs. Either Roup or Cholera is your trouble 
now. For years and years I could not account 
for this, I could see no visible sign of either 
disease, but I could not feed so as to compel 
them to lay. After I began using my Cholera 
and Iron tonic, all this ceased. I never have 
had such a thing happen since I discovered its 
use. Nature seems to resist a certain amount 
of the germs of the disease, but in doing so, 



56 LAYING. 

it requires the full energies of the fowl ; so 
the accumulation of fat, muscular power, and 
egg production ceases until the system is re- 
lieved of the disease. 

Often it is three or four weeks after the 
production of eggs ceases before you have an 
outbreak of cholera or roup, but as a general 
thing it is sure to come. 

Eggs for Sitting. — In selecting eggs for 
this purpose, choose such as you have reason 
to know have been rendered productive. 
Those of medium size — u e., the average size 
that the hen lays — are most apt to prove pro- 
ductive. Stephanus tells us " that he always 
found the round egg to contain the female 
chick, and that of the oblong and sharp end, 
the male. If you examine the egg between 
your eye and a candle (we should say now in 
an egg- tester) you will be able to discern the 
position of the little air-bag at the blunt end 
of the shell. If this be in the exact center, 
the egg will produce a cock, if just a little to 
one side a hen." So you see from the Roman 
period to the present time the mind of man 
has searched for some sign to tell the sex of 
eggs. So far as my knowledge goes, I think 
the Romans could guess at it just as well as 
we can. You may form a very fair idea 
of your eggs from their specific gravity. 
Put them into a bowl of tepid water, and 
reject all that do not readily sink to the 
bottom. 



PAIRING. 57 

Unfruitful Eggs — Maybe found about the 
twelfth day of incubation. For this purpose 
hold the egg between your hands in the sun- 
shine; if the shadow which it forms waver, 
keep the egg, as the wavering of the shadow 
is occasioned by the motion of the chick with- 
in; if it remains stationary, throw it away 
and relieve the hen of its care. If your eggs 
have been fresh laid the chicks will be devel- 
oped earlier than otherwise ; if they have been 
fresh you will, about the sixteenth day, if you 
apply your ear to the egg y hear a piping noise 
within ; if the eggs have been stale, this will 
not be perceptible until about the eighteenth 
day ; and, at this time, the yolk which had 
previously lain outside and around the chicken, 
will now be gradually entering into the body 
of the bird. This serves as nourishment to 
the little prisoner until his subsequent efforts 
shall have set him free. 

PAIRING. 

We are not sufficiently acquainted with the 
habits of the common fowl in a wild state to 
know whether the cocks always associate with 
the hens or only occasionally. Hens will lay 
some eggs without pairing, (they will not 
hatch) but this is not natural, so the number 
will be small, and the laying uncertain, hence 
it is indispensible to have them paired. 



58 SELECTION OF A GOOD COCK. 

I will advance a few ideas on this subject, 
applicable to all breeds. The cock should be 
of a large and well-shaped body, long from 
the head to the rump, thick in girth; his neck 
long and nicely bending, body straight and 
erect ; his comb, wattles and throat should be 
large, comb a deep scarlet red; his eyes 
round and piercing, answering the color of 
of his plume ; his bill should be crooked, 
sharp, strongly set on his head, color suiting 
his breed; neck feathers should be very long, 
bright and shining, covering from his head to 
his shoulders, his legs straight and large (for 
his breed) ; his claws short, strong and wrin- 
kled ; and his tail long, covering his body very 
closely. 

All authorities agree that a cock is in his 
prime at two years old, though I have had 
white and brown Leghorns of four months so 
precocious as to show every mark of full vigor, 
while others of the same brood did not appear 
in this state for many months afterwards. At 
three years old, generally a cock begins to 
lose the sprightly gait and bright color which 
distinguished him at two. The length of his 
feathers increases, and his hackles become 
of too loose a texture, and dangle over his 
throat. 

As soon as you perceive the marks of de- 
clining vigor, dispense with his services, and 
select his successor from your supernumerary 
cocks that you have reared for this special 



CHOICE OF A HEN POULTRY HOUSES. 59 

purpose. In making choice between two cocks 
which appear equally fine and vigorous, try 
them by making them fight together, and se- 
lect the conqeror; hens, like other females, 
always prefer the male who shows most cour- 
age and spirit. It must be understood always 
that the cock you breed from must be in per- 
fect health. Next to health and strength age 
,is to be duly considered. Neither select one 
too old or young; from one and a half to 
three years old. It is better for the fancier 
"to be sure than sorry.'' Steer equally clear 
of premature and often deceptive develop- 
ments, and of incipient and decrepitude ; avoid 
all extremes. 

CHOICE OF A HEN. 

The selection of a good hen is a matter of 
even more consequence than that of the cock 
for her companion. As each of the different 
breeds have their own particular markings, 
it is difficult to give general instructions. 
For the breed, select a medium sized hen, a 
brilliant eye, wide tail, large and not too long 
legs, trim in shape, an industrious forager, and 
the very best layer. 

POULTRY HOUSES. 

In order to make poultry profitable, it is 
indispensable that they should be properly 



60 POULTRY HOUSES. 

housed, and that such conveniencies should be 
provided as will secure their comfort and 
health. Every collection of poultry requires 
some place to be provided for them to secure 
these advantages. When left to themselves, 
and roaming over a farm, they become a bur- 
den to themselves, unprofitable to their owner, 
and, if in close proximity, a nuisance to the 
neighborhood. A certain degree of confine- 
ment is necessary for fowls. Close confine- 
ment (unless in movable coops) will in a de- 
gree prevent them laying, and in the end 
destroy their health. A good sized yard, or 
run, connected with a place for shelter and 
roosting, is what is required. 

Care should be taken in selecting a situa- 
tion for these accommodations. It should be 
high and rolling ; above anything, have it so 
it can be well and thoroughly .drained. A 
south-easterly exposure is the best, and a 
building of brick or stone is preferable to one 
of wood. The extent of the ground and 
buildings to be proportioned to the number 
of fowls kept, and if any error is to be toler- 
ated it is best to have it on the side of small 
buildings. 

If you follow instructions given in my 
recipes, you need have no fear of these infec- 
tious diseases, (remember that cholera and 
roup are both "infectious diseases") even if 
your buildings are small ; and laying in winter 
is rather promoted than otherwise, wheiTfowls 



POULTRY HOUSES. 6 1 

are thus situated. A medium course should 
be pursued, as the wisest and most econom- 
ical. If poultry are not defended from the 
cold of winter they become torpid ; exposed 
to intense heat in summer they become en- 
feebled. To avoid the numerous diseases 
which are induced by dampness, care should 
be taken that the poultry-house should be in 
a dry location, and properly defended from 
rain and storms. A due regard to ventilation 
is indispensible to guard against an infected 
atmosphere, and suitable facilities afforded for 
their necessary exercise which all kinds of 
poultry daily demand. You should provide 
a place for dry sand, ashes, loose dirt, etc., 
so they may enjoy the liberty of rolling them- 
selves, in order to free themselves from ver- 
min, and for their amusement. 

The house, as already stated, is preferable 
if built of brick or stone ; but whatever the 
material, it is of the first importance that it 
should be so constructed as to exclude lice and 
vermin of all kinds. 

In the erection of a poultry-house, of course 
consideration of fancy or economy will fur- 
nish the rule, in deciding on a plan. A really 
good one can be built for a very small amount 
of money; but there are a great many in ex- 1 
istence which excel in expense many dwell- 
ings considered comfortable, and even elegant 
inhabited by mankind. 

As cheap a house, and suitable for fifty 



62 POULTRY HOUSES. 

head, as I know of is built as follows ; six- 
teen feet long and ten feet wide, back six 
feet high, front ten feet high ; roof pitched 
from front to back ; side the back and ends 
up with one-inch plank; nail a twelve-inch 
plank just under the front eave, another one 
thirty-four inches below it, cover the space 
with thin muslin, securely tacked on, and 
painted on both sides with linseed oil (this is 
almost as good as glass), board the remainder 
of the front up with plank ; strip cr batton 
the cracks. Thoroughly whitewash, prepared 
as directed. Roof w r ith plank or shingles ; 
place your perches three feet high, eighteen 
inches apart, at the back side ; fill the inside 
up twelve inches with dry, loose dirt for a 
floor; just in front of your first perch fasten 
a twelve-inch plank on its edge, so as to keep 
the droppings to the back part of the floor; 
every morning sweep the front and sprinkle 
the litter over their droppings, and always 
shovel and sweep the entire floor clean once 
a week. Several times a year haul a wagon 
load of dry dirt and throw inside. Your 
sweepings" alone are worth all it costs you to 
keep it up. 

Two feet from the house, all around it, d : g 
a trench a foot deep. In winter, or cold, 
windy weather, set corn fodder closely all 
around it, as deeply as you see fit; the roof 
may be covered with it. You can use straw 
or hav instead of the fodder. 



FATTENING FOWLS. 63 

Hang nests all over the front of your house, 
which should face the south-east. A lot en- 
closed, twenty-five feet square, will do ; an 
acre is better. Set the lot out in damson 
plum-trees, eight feet each way. The fifty 
hens will give you a profit of $50.00, and in 
five years your plum trees $2.00 each. (I 
mean for my latitude, of course, as said plums 
only do well from forty to forty-three degrees.) 

FATTENING FOWLS. 

It is truly a prime requisite in fowls brought 
to the table that they should be suitably fat, 
as the lean bird is neglected in the market, 
and refused by the epicure. 

Unless some attention is paid by parties 
interested to making their poultry fat, it will 
be found that they will be rarely fitted for the 
purpose for which they are designed. The 
great desideratum seems to be to produce 
fowls which shall be healthy and likewise fat. 
Over-feeding is a sure cause of disease, and 
similar effects follow when they are too long 
or too closely confined. 

For an average farmer, "who delights to 
have the fat of the land to live on," I know 
of no easier, surer, or healthier plan than to. 
confine five or six head in a movable coop, 
and feed corn soaked in skim milk, a little 
wheat, plenty of meat scraps, or clean grease 
of some kind ; once a day a mixture of soft 



64 FATTENING FOWLS. 

feed of meal, middlings, mashed potatoes, and 
all the charcoal that can be mixed with it, so 
they will eat it at all. Give them no gravel 
unless they have been kept up some ten days. 
To keep them healthy give them a small al- 
lowance of the cholera and iron tonic daily. 

Move the coop daily, so they will be on 
fresh ground. In five days some of the lot 
will be nicely fatted, you can use them as 
needed, but in about fifteen days they will 
begin to lose flesh again. There are a great 
many methods resorted to by parties fatten- 
ing and marketing them in large cities. The 
principal ingredients are stale grease and meat 
of some kind, — something that we would pre- 
fer not to think about if eating chickens at a 
city hotel. If you allow your poultry to use 
about your stables, cow sheds, hog pens, etc., 
and kill and eat them without fattening, are 
they any better than your city friends get? 

Fattening fowls should be kept quiet, and 
have as little exercise as possible, to keep 
them in health ; any more than this calls for 
expenditure of food, which does not avail any- 
thing in the fattening process. You can not 
get them fat, no difference what you feed, if 
they are uneasy and discontented. It is of 
the utmost importance to feed regularly (three 
times a day), and that there should be noth- 
ing to disturb them, or excite fear or discon- 
tent. 



RAISING TURKEYS. 65 

The tenderest bird, and most difficult to 
raise is the turkey. Strange the difference 
in the vitality of the young and old. A little 
dew or a few drops of rain applied externally, 
or a little uncooked food internally, generally 
kills the young. When old it will go half- 
starved, and roost on the top of a barn, or in 
an old apple-tree all winter, and seem to 
glory in it. 

When I was a boy, wild turkeys were so 
plenty that we made no effort to raise tame 
ones. As late as 1848, I could take my rifle 
and kill one any day. It was no trouble to 
get within "easy range/' I have found their 
nests, and taken the eggs and hatched their 
young — and by keeping their wings cropped 
(sometimes their toe-nails cut off) I have do- 
mesticated them. It takes three years, or 
generations, to get them so you can count on 
them. In the fall they always will wander 
and seem to want to range in droves, but by 
driving home a few times and feeding well, 
they soon quit. 

I have found many a nest full of young 
ones, have spent many an hour looking and 
hunting for them. You hear their peculiar 
whistle all around you, but you have very 
keen eyes if you see one while the mother 
hen is within hearing, cautioning them with 
her peculiar language, "quit! quit! ,: 

As tender as the young seem to be, a wild 
turkey-hen generally succeeds in rearing her 



66 RAISING TURKEYS. 

twelve and often fifteen young. After they 
are as large as a brown Leghorn hen, and be- 
fore "droving" in the fall, you seldom see a 
hen but she has her drove, over ten in num- 
ber. Their success and our failure is in brood- 
ing. I knew one to hatch in an old tree-top. 
I passed and repassed her three times a day 
for over four weeks, and I never missed her 
from her nest. When not in sight, I could 
hear their §< whispering whistle." It surely 
was a good half-mile to water, and how they 
kept from perishing seemed strange, but I 
suppose they lived on the dew they could sip 
from the leaves. Their feed must have been 
slim. She used round on our farm, and when 
September came she had thirteen nice plump 
turkeys. 

If 'coons, foxes, skunks, etc., do not trouble 
you, if a hen steals her nest, sits and hatches, 
and you let her alone, giving no feed, etc., 
she generally is successful. But here lies the 
trouble — the habits of the wild turkey are 
" tamed down " so that the mother hen feels 
no disposition to compel the young to remain 
under her wings; they soon leave the nest, 
and the old one follows suit, and so good 
brooding is neglected. 

It requires a good motherly woman to raise 
turkeys, one who is willing to cook for, and 
nurse them. There is more general failure 
in raising them than any other poultry, so I 



LAYING. 67 

shall give you in detail my plan which has 
proved successful for years. 

LAYING. 

About the first of March your turkeys be- 
gin to liven up, the old torn to spread his tail 
and make love to his biddies. If the weather 
is warm, early in the morning you will hear 
the hens giving out their peculiar " cluck." 
This means she is going to her nest, or to 
hunt a place for one. If you have placed a 
barrel near by, provided with a nest, an egg 
in it, you may coax them to lay here. 

I have known them fastened on such nests 
until they lay one egg, then you will have no 
trouble, but you must keep an egg of some 
kind in the nest. If you have a barn shed, 
or outbuilding, fasten them up here every 
morning until you know each one has layed — 
the nest should be prepared beforehand. 

After they lay the first egg in the nest you 
will have no trouble until she lays her fifteen 
eggs if young. Older hens sometimes lay- 
twenty before wanting to sit. Sometimes 
they are too fat to lay early, if so, feed oats 
instead of corn. By feeding a tablespoonful 
of wheat daily, they will lay their third lay- 
ing, at which time they should be allowed to. 
sit. 

The first layings may be sit under common 
hens, in nests similar to those prepared for 
chickens. But the shells are thick, and if 



68 LAYING. 

the eggs get the least chill, or are not damp 
enough, your turkeys will be weakly to start 
on. 

If the turkey hen has to be moved, select 
a suitable place and prepare her a good large 
nest on the ground. You can build a rail 
pen around it, or place the covered part of 
one of the " movable coops'' over it, give 
her a dust box, plenty of corn and water ; be 
sure the eggs are damp enough. On the 
thirty-first day after sitting, the turkeys leave 
the shell. Here is the first trouble; a great 
many turkey hens abandon the nest just as 
soon as they see the first chick ; to avoid this 
slip the young out and place them in a soft 
woolen rag, where they will be comfortable, 
which you will know by their remaining quiet. 
Something wrong if they keep chattering. 

Lice kills two-thirds of the entire number 
hatched in the United States within the first 
fifteen days. You must apply the Lice Ex- 
terminator promptly, if you do they will give 
you no trouble; if you do not, and they have 
any, they are sure to die in the end. When 
they have lice they will feel light, are weak 
and feeble, finally die without a struggle. 
They are more apt to be lousy with chicken 
than turkey hens. 

I prefer they remain without eating some 
twenty to twenty-four hours. If you can, clean 
the litter out of the nest ; give fresh pounded 
or cut straw, and leave them on the nest as long 



LAYING. 69 

as possible. The idea is, they are very weak 
and easily chilled. If exposed now they are ru- 
ined. You can leave an egg in the nest, lap 
the little ones up in the day-time, keep them 
where they will be warm. At night return 
them to the warm nest. This gives them a 
good start. The first thing I feed is a grain 
of black pepper to each. They were origin- 
ally natives of hot countries and the need of 
these hot spices, seems never to have left 
them. Then middlings and sifted meal, dry — 
you might say only dampened with sweet 
not tainted, milk, adding a little clean sand, 
gravel and a small piece of pounded char- 
coal, all mixed together. After the first day 
I never feed soft feed to them unless there is 
pepper and charcoal in it. Then, if your feed 
is sloppy it will kill them in the end. I never 
could succeed with them by feeding corn meal 
alone, especially if uncooked ; it seems to be 
a poison to them. Eggs boiled hard and sea- 
soned with pepper are the best feed while 
young and weak, especially if you have to 
feed them by hand. Onions chopped fine are 
good. Indian meal, one-third; middlings, 
two-thirds ; baked dry and soaked in milk is 
the best general feed I know of. 

The properties of albumen in their feed is 
what you want, middlings, coarse flour and 
milk contain the most. But you must not 
feed this to excess. An occasional feed of corn- 
bread, if sweet — never feed stale bread — 



JO LAYING. 

cracked wheat and cheat from the mill, all 
make a variety. I find it a good plan to have 
three or four tame chicks with them when 
you first feed. 

The chicks begin to pick, the turkeys 
begin to learn how to eat. The turkey hen 
seems to have no care or thought of the little 
ones. She eats every thing herself, but 
makes no effort to learn her young. Watch 
close if any do not eat, feed them by hand 
until they learn. Water twice a day. To one 
'gallon of water add a tablespoonful of lime ; 
give no other water. 

Always keep a box of fresh sand and small 
gravel — pounded stone will do, for them, so 
they can eat when they wish. Anything that 
decays fast, or in a state of decay, ruins 
young turkeys. They are more sensitive to 
such food than any other fowl, hence the 
general failure. 

Now you must avoid over-feed ; several 
times a day, for the first few days, is enough, 
then diminish to three times a day and no more. 

After feed your next trouble is damp or 
rainy weather. While young they must have 
dry quarters. If they are on the damp cold 
ground, or get wet, better kill them and save 
your time. So have a shed, or dry ground for 
them some place. Never let them out in wet, 
damp grass ; I use the movable coop ; place 
on high ground, away from the house, clear 
out of hearing. When left to themselves 



THE GOOSE. 71 

they seem to do better. They must be han- 
dled in this way until they " shoot the red" 
or the time when the head and neck acquire 
the reddish color of the adult. 

As soon as they can swallow it, feed an 
occasional feed of pop-corn, and so on until 
their principal living will be corn. If you 
want heavy weights turn them out now with 
the mother hen, feed all the corn they will eat 
at night, some in the morning. They are apt 
to come home to roost if you do. 

THE GOOSE. 

Where people have a right in common, and 
live in the vicinity of creeks, the breeding 
and rearing of geese will prove profitable, as 
they can be kept at small expense. 

They are hardy and live to be " old." An 
old author says, " If well kept and fed as 
much as they need, they will lay at least 100 
eggs yearly." 

They are easily hatched, nests on the 
ground ; large hens answer very well to hatch 
them ; the last ten days it is best to put the 
eggs in warm water and then back in the 
nest. This rots the shell and they are stronger. 
The first week or two keep warm and dry, 
and feed middlings and meal, mixed with milk'. 
Feed sparingly the first week, then increase 
gradually until they can pluck grass. They 
seem to require a small portion of salt in 



72 THE 1 UCK. 

their food to keep their feathers in good 
trim. 

Early goslings can be picked when their 
feathers are "ripe" and then grow out full 
in time for fattening for the holiday market. 
If well fed the yield of feathers will be one 
quarter of a pound from each one. This pays 
the expense of rearing them. 

THE DUCK. 

The duck should always find a place in the 
poultry yard. The general impression is you 
cannot succeed with them, unless you live on 
a large creek or river. But I find it decidedly 
easier to raise them where they can not get 
to a large body of water. And they seem to 
do fully as well in every other respect. I 
have a small pond, supplied from a distant 
spring, which is all the water they can get. 
But of a morning you will find them hunting 
for slugs and bugs all over the clover and 
potato patches. They come nearer foraging 
their own living than any of my poultry. 
I count them at the head of the list for profit. 
If hatched early they can be " picked " three 
times and then fattened and sold during Lent. 

The eggs are no trouble to hatch, requiring 
no turning, etc. Thirty-one days in hatching. 
They should not be allowed in very much 
water until well feathered. At first their feed 
should be meal and middlings, if mixed with 



DISEASES OF POULTRY. 73 

milk all the better ; potatoes and mill screen- 
ings, finally small grained corn. 

They soon become good scavengers, eat 
any thing. For nice feathers feed a teaspoon- 
ful of ground flax seed, mixed in soft feed, 
once a week ; all the corn they can eat at 
night. 

DISEASES OF POULTRY. 

Poultry, like other animals, are liable to nu- 
merous diseases, some of them malignant, and 
many of them fatal. In our climate, how- 
ever, the number of important disorders is 
small, and they usually yield to judicious 
treatment. That very little attention has 
been bestowed on this subject arises, no 
doubt, from the fact that the value of an in- 
dividual fowl is comparativelv insignificant ; 
and while diseases of other domesticated ani- 
mals generally claim prompt and efficient 
care, the unhappy inhabitants of the poultry- 
yard are too often relieved of their sufferings 
by " chopping their heads off." 

But there are reasons which will justify a 
more careful regard to this matter, besides 
the humanity of adding to the comfort of 
these useful creatures ; and the attempt to 
cure, in cases of disease, will be rewarded by 
rendering their flesh more palatable and their 
eggs more wholesome. 

Most of the diseases to which poultry are 



74 DISEASES OF POULTRY. 

subject are the result of errors of diet or 
management, and should have been prevented 
or may be removed by the use of appropri- 
ate remedies and adoption of a suitable 
regimen. When an individual is attacked, it 
should be forthwith removed to prevent the 
contamination of the remainder of the flock. 
Nature, who proves a guardian of fowls in 
health, will nurse them in their weakness, and 
act as an efficient physician to the sick. We 
can do no more than co-operate with her ; 
and the aim of all my medical treatment is to 
follow the indications which nature holds out, 
and assist in the effort which she constantly 
makes for restoration of health. 

Before treating the maladies of greatest 
consequence, it is desirable to present a brief 
view of so much of the anatomical structure 
of fowls as will be necessary to the compre- 
hension of disease and its management. 

The digestive function in poultry is partly 
mechanical and partly chemical. It differs 
widely from some quadrupeds who feed on 
similar food. Fowls swallow the grain whole, 
and it is digested in the stomach. From this 
fact, the opinion has been derived of the ne- 
cessity of giving stones and gravel to fowls, 
in order to enable them to grind the food 
which they take. But this is an error ; for, 
though there are many advantages derived 
from furnishing them gravel, it is by no means 
necessary to a perfect and regular digestion. 



DISEASES OF POULTRY. 



75 



The digestive organs of fowls consists of 
the gullet and crop, the gizzard, stomach, 
liver and intestines. The gullet, or aesopha- 
gus, runs down the neck towards the right 
side, swelling out in front of the chest, into 
a membraneous bag, called the crop or craw. 

The crop is somewhat analogous to the 
paunch in the ox or sheep. It receives the 
gullet into its upper part, and proceeds down- 
wards about the middle of the bag, in such 
a manner that the crop is in some measure 
aside from the regular communication be- 
tween the upper and lower opening of the 
gullet. Its office is to receive the food when 
first swallowed, and to macerate it, and dis- 
solve it by means of a liquor, which is sepa- 
rated by the glands, which may be observed 
covering its surface. 

The food, after passing the crop, goes 
through the remaining part of the gullet into 
a cavity, shaped like a funnel of smaller di- 
mensions. This is the second stomach, which 
is furnished with a large number of glands, 
which are called gastric glands ; they are 
placed near each other and are hollow. Their 
office is to secrete a solvent or digestive fluid, 
and to discharge it through a small opening 
into the cavity. When this fluid has diluted 
and digested the food sufficiently, it is pre- 
pared to pass into the gizzard. 

The gizzard is the last stomach, and is com- 
posed of a body of very fine and dense mus- 



76 DISEASES OF POULTRY. 

cles, lined with a thick, grisly membrane. 
Towards the cavity of the stomach, this lining 
forms folds and depressions, which on the 
opposite surfaces are adapted, or fit, to each 
other. The gizzard is comparatively small 
and narrow, and has its outlet near its en- 
trance. It is calculated, in every respect, for 
producing very powerful trituration, or grind- 
ing and is adapted to answer the purposes 
which are subserved by grinding teeth in 
other animals. On account of its hard gristly 
substance, posesses little sensibilities. The 
outlet of the gizzard discharges the digested 
food in the form of paste, having a grayish 
color, into the chyle-gut, which is the first of 
the intestines. 

The liver prepares bile from the blood con- 
ducted to it by the veins, and by means of a 
duct, carries the bile from the gall-bladder 
into the chyle-gut, in a downward direction, 
to be mixed with the digested food. This 
peculiarity is different from other animals. 
Another fluid, brought from the pancreas to 
the chyle-gut, completes the apparatus for 
digestion. 

The food now proceeds on to the small in- 
testines. 

Their surface is lined with the mouths of 
numerous absorbents, which perpetually open 
to take up the aliment prepared in the stom- 
ach. The refuse is passed to the rectum, to 
be discharged from the body. 



A TALK ON HOG AND POULTRY CHOLERA. J J 

Fowls are also furnished with kidneys, for 
removing superfluous fluid from the blood. 
The kidneys lie in a hollow beside the back- 
bone, and the urine is carried from there in a 
bluish-colored canal into the rectum. Fowls 
have no bladder, and it is a criterion of health 
when their droppings are moist. 

A TALK ON HOG AND POULTRY CHOLERA. 

In 1857 I began to seriously study poultry 
cholera. I began the study expecting in time to 
unravel the mystery. I laid out my work for 
years ahead, but I was to avoid what others said 
or done, as I would be sure to make their mis- 
takes. Mine was to be a practical explora- 
tion, not theoretical. My object was to find 
the cause, then the cure. Up to 1868 I had 
become thorough in the anatomy, habits, etc., 
and felt sure I knew what caused the disease. 
To test my theory, I made some experiments, 
published at that time. 

I took a fowl, apparently well, scratched 
her under the wing so as to show blood. I 
cut another's head off, about dead with cholera. 
With a broken broom-straw I saturated the 
wound of the well one with the blood of the 
diseased one. The third day she died with 
every symptom of cholera. For another I 
mixed the droppings of a sick hen and fed a 
well one ; in two days she died. (I experi- 
mented on hogs at the same time with same 



;S A TALK ON HOG AND POULTRY CHOLERA. 

results). I found that I could give it to rats 
and rabbits but not to sheep, ducks or geese. 
I found by using an imaginary small amount, 
that poultry would get well ; a little more than 
this produced lingering death — a full drop 
they would live about three days — that by 
employing it in several places, I could kill a 
well hen in about twenty-four hours. 

I then became fully convinced that I knew 
the real cause, and to the present time I have 
no reason to doubt it. I cure it — in its incipi- 
ent stage — and prevent it on this theory, and 
in the end scientific men will agree to it. 

We all know that measles are a contagious 
disease, so is small-pox, yellow fever, etc ; we 
fully understand that each disease has germs 
of its own. If you are exposed to measles, 
you will not take small-pox, and vice versa. 
Now to make this plain to an ordinary farmer, 
I will put it in easy language. Each of these 
diseases have a germ — they are vegetable, 
too — no spontaneous growth, you know, of 
its own. A person inhaling them — they float 
in the atmosphere, as millions of others do — 
they are not visible to the eye, even if as- 
sisted with an ordinary microscope — they pass 
to the blood and then through their trans- 
formation, producing the type of disease of 
which they are the forerunner. 

Poultry cholera is caused by a species of 
these microscopic germs, and they multiply 
and transform themselves until the blood, the 



A TALK ON HOG AND POULTRY CHOLERA. 79 

flesh and excrements are full of them. The 
smallest imaginable amount taken into the 
system will produte the disease to a certain 
extent, and poultry have the ability, while in 
health, to resist the disease for a long time. 
I used to have them linger a long time, but 
finally get well, then I have noticed that those 
that lingered a long time would take it the 
second time and die in a very short time. 
Like the gape-worm, the most contagious 
form of cholera comes from the droppings of 
those afflicted with the disease ; when the 
flesh decays it seems to destroy the germ, 
but their droppings, when mixed with earth, 
seem never to lose it. It matters not how 
hard they freeze, how dry they get, how far 
they float in water, or how far they are trans- 
ported on your boots, or in an old coop, just 
as soon as they are swallowed by a fowl and 
obtain the needed amount of moisture and 
heat, they appear to waken up and are as 
deadly as they were ten years before. By 
the aid of notes I had kept of the effects of 
different medicines on poultry, within two 
years, I could keep my flock from taking the 
disease. 

In two years more I learned how to destroy 
the germs, so I could stop the spread of the 
disease at once. 

In 1878 I cured them over and over, while 
in the incipient stage, remember; and in 1879 
I copyrighted the recipe, and it has been sue- 



SO HOG CHOLERA. 

cessful with me always, and with thousands 
that have bought and used it. There is no 
use of multiplying words about it, I know as 
long as there are poultry to have cholera this 
recipe, if used as directed, will prevent their 
taking it by destroying the germs, in the sys- 
tem or on the ground, in the water, or where 
ever found. It has been tested too long to 
admit of any doubts whatever on this sub- 
ject. 

HOG CHOLERA. 

For a long time I thought that hog and 
poultry cholera were closely related, but I 
never could give a hog chclera from the blood 
of a diseased chicken, neither could I give a 
chicken cholera from the blood of a diseased 
hog. You can innoculate the blood of dis- 
eased hogs or poultry into a wild rabbit and 
it dies with every symptom of hog cholera. 
After close investigation and numerous ex- 
periments I succeeded in curing severai hogs 
that had the plainly marked symptoms of 
cholera, and still I hold* the opinion that the 
two diseases are very closely related ; in fact, 
I know they are. Of course it is caused by 
one of these microscopic germs, and they 
occupy near the same time and mode of 
transformation, producing death in about the 
same average time ; are contagious in the 
same way ; the germs when exposed to freez- 
ing or heat retaining their vitality the same, 



INDIGESTION. 8 1 

and I know the same remedy cures in one as 
well as in the other ; excepting their diet and 
care are different, then the two diseases go 
hand in hand. If you have one the other is 
sure to follow soon. But it is a different 
germ, but one carries so much similarity to 
the other that they must be of the same 
family ; public opinion must believe so too, as 
it will persist in calling them both M cholera." 

After repeated tests — all successful, too — 
I copyrighted my " Hog and Poultry Cholera 
Recipe.'' But now, mark you, that these re- 
cipes do not depend upon medicine alone. I 
know quite a number of persons get them 
and expect to give their hogs or poultry a 
dose as though it were " pills,'* and this to 
effect a cure. 

These recipes will cover the ground of de- 
stroying the germs of the disease, using the 
very best diet to sustain the strength of the 
system and eradicate the evil. 

INDIGESTION. 

Indigestion is common with fowls, and de- 
serves attention according to the causes that 
produce it. A sudden change of food often 
produces crop sickness. The fowl suddenly 
loses flesh becoming light and weak ; it is 
often produced in the young by feeding too 
wet or sloppy feed. Such symptoms are re- 
moved by dry feed as a general thing. Some- 



82 CROP BOUND. 

times a severe fit of indigestion sets in, which 
threatens serious consequences, especially if 
long continued. Find the cause (in the feed 
generally), and remove it. 

CROP BOUND. 

Causes. — The most usual cause is that the 
fowl has swallowed something that it can not 
digest, such as a piece of bone, stone or shell, 
which obstructs the natural passage and leaves 
the stomach empty, causing hunger. 

Symptoms. — Continued hardness of the 
crop, with a disinclination to eat. 

Remedy. — Before you feed in the morning, 
if their crops are swelled or full, this must 
have immediate attention. Often they can 
be relieved by compelling them to fly or run, 
have them fly up on something, then down, 
etc. Sometimes relief is afforded by giving 
a tea-spoonful of castor-oil, and kneading so 
as to commingle with contents of the crop, 
feeding bread soaked in warm fresh milk, etc. 
Should there be no improvement, remove a 
few feathers along the side of the crop, take 
a real sharp knife and c.ut a slit large enough, 
and clean the crop of every thing in it. When 
done, sew together with a few stitches, but 
be sure and sew the sack of the crop together, 
and then the outside covering or skin of the 
bird. After sewing stick a few downy feath- 
ers on the blood, give no water for twenty- 



COSTIVENESS — DIARRHEA. 8 3 

four hours after, then feed on bread soaked 
in milk sparingly the first three days, and it 
will soon recover. 

COSTIVENESS. 

This disorder will be apparent by observing 
their unsuccessful attempts to relieve them- 
selves. It frequently comes from feeding dry 
feed too long, without access to green vege- 
tables. Indeed, it is almost sure to happen 
unless some substitute, as potatoes, turnips, 
etc., are used. The want of a sufficient sup- 
ply of pure water will produce the disease, on 
account of that peculiar structure which has 
already been explained, by which fowls are 
unable to void their urine except in connection 
w T ith the fceces of solid food, and through the 
same channel. Right here is the first organ 
that becomes deranged, that finally produces 
cholera 

Remedy. — Soaked bread, w r ith warm, skim- 
med milk, is a mild and usually sufficient 
remedy. All kinds of green vegetables are 
better. Supply plenty of animal food (meat 
or grease). Castor-oil relieves the most ob- 
stinate cases. 

DIARRHEA. 

The causes are dampness, undue acidity 
in the bowels, or the presence of* irritating 
matter there. 



v 



84 DISEASES OF THE RESPIRATORY ORGANS. 

The symptoms are lassitude and emaciation, 
and in very severe cases, the voiding of cal- 
careous matter, white streaked with yellow, 
resembling the yolk of a stale ^gg, and sticks 
to the feathers near the vent, finally becomes 
acrid, from the presence of ammonia, and 
causes inflammation, which speedily extends to 
the intestines, causing death. 

Remedy. — When caused by a diet of green 
or soft food, change your feed, and give water 
sparingly. When it arises from undue acid- 
ity mix plenty of charcoal with their soft feed. 
If an obstinate case add a little chalk. 

The following tonic should always be used 
in all diseases of indigestion, especially so in 
the last named. It is good for poultry at any 
time, especially so when they are laying. 

Cholera and Iron Tonic. — A quart of 
strong vinegar, four ounces of pieces of 
nails or small pieces of iron. Thoroughly 
shake every day for one week, it is then ready 
for use. Add two table-spoonfuls to one gal- 
lon of drinking water, and one of the No. 
One of the cholera recipe. Use the tincture 
of iron alone, if you have not the cholera 
recipe. 

diseases of the respiratory organs. 

Fowls are so constructed in their respira- 
tory system, that their method of breathing 
is peculiar. The principal organ used is the 



GAPES. 85 

nostril, rather than the mouth. You will ob- 
serve that their nostrils are comparatively 
large, and that they have immediate commu- 
nication with the wind-pipe, which is con- 
structed with a series of firm cartilages, bound 
together by strong membranes. 

The windpipe reaches down to the chest, 
and is there divided into branches, which be- 
come constantly smaller till they seem to be 
mere holes. These ramifications of the wind- 
pipe, with numerous blood-vessels, constitute 
the substance of the lungs. The spaces be- 
tween them are occupied w r ith delicate mem- 
branes, which unite them, and gives a regular 
appearance to the mass. The holes in which 
the branches of the windpipe terminate are 
apertures into large air-sacs, which communi- 
cate with the various parts of the body, and 
constitute, as it were, an auxiliary lung. The 
whole mass is encased in a membrane or 
plura, of great delicacy, and secretes a fluid 
used in keeping the several parts from ad- 
hering. 

GAPES. 

Causes. — Foul water, exposure to wet, 
damp places to roost; by feeding sloppy feed, 
lacking in nourishment. 

This is the most common disorder of poul- 

, and is most prevalent in hot months or 

nates. It is not only annoying and trouble- 

some, but amazingly fatal. This disease is 



v 



86 GAPES. 

caused by numerous small red worms, near 
the size of a cambric needle, adhering to the 
lining of the windpipe. When examined by 
a large magnifying-glass they appear to be all 
head, and the head all mouth. From the first 
sight of them that can be obtained under a 
lens, they are double, the male and female 
together, somewhat in the shape of letter Y. 
The male attaches to the female by means of 
a strong membraneous sucker, and each of 
them to the lining of the windpipe with their 
sucker-shaped mouths. These worms lay eggs 
in great numbers, which may be seen attached 
to their bodies. They multiply and enlarge 
very fast. As soon as the blood-vessels cease 
to yield sufficient nourishment, the weaker 
ones lose their hold and begin to move about, 
causing others to lose their hold, finally quite 
a ball of them will be formed, dropping down 
on the chest or lungs, causing death by suf- 
focation. Just where the gape worm comes 
from, how or when, is quite a " speculative" 
subject with the poultry fraternity, one on 
which even fanciers of to-day can not throw 
much light. 

I shall not " speculate, " but will tell you 
what " I know about it." If your hen is lousy 
(and unless you use precautionary measures, 
they will be when hatching) and your chicks 
run with her, in four to nine days they will be 
gaping. If you take two broods, neither of 
the hens any lice on them, place one on fresh- 



GAPES. cS 7 

plowed or new land, they will not take the 
gapes ; place the other one where chicks have 
used before that had the gapes, and the whole 
brood will become affected. At weaning time 
take half of the brood that is clear of the 
gapes, yet let them use with and where the 
others do, and they will die with the gapes, 
while those remaining on entirely fresh land 
will not have it. 

Take a brood and apply my gape prevent- 
ive, and let them go where they wish, and 
they will not take the gapes. These tests I 
have made for years and years. Why does 
the lousy hen have gaping chicks? Because 
the parasites enter the nostrils, and pass 
through transformations that produce the 
gape-worm by the thousands. Every well-in- 
formed farmer fully understands how his horse 
becomes affected with the bots, which is only 
an egg deposited by a "fly" on the hair, 
licked off and swallowed by the horse, and 
in time transforms itself to the destructive 
bot. A great many pass with the food, and 
are voided by the horse, and they in their 
turn transform themselves to the self-same 
fly. The eggs and gape worms get mixed 
with the food of the chick (by sneezing, etc.,) 
and they in time are voided. Then the chick 
in sneezing relieves itself of a mass of them. 
All these are left around where they use, and 
in time are picked up by others — eagerly, too ; 
and as soon as the opportunity offers of a 



v 



88 GAPES. 

nice young tender chick, they lay hold with 
their death-dealing sucker mouths, and soon 
compel the chick to gasp for breath. 

They do not seem to lose vitality by freez- 
ing or heating in the sun. In hot weather 
they enlarge in the warm earth, if they have 
a little damp manure about them. Land that 
has been used over several years and not 
plowed seems to be a great deal the worst. 
But my experiments show that by plowing 
the land deep and turning it clear over (top 
underneath) that it almost eradicates the 
plague in the ground, or, if you cultivate po- 
tatoes in said land, it destroys the worms left 
on it. 

A lady friend wrote me in January: "I am 
using an Incubator, so 1 shall not be annoyed 
with gaping chicks — will I? ,: The last of 
February she writes again: " I hatched one 
hundred and seven chicks from my two hun- 
dred eggs, and as sure as you live five of them 
were gaping when only six days old, and I 
know they all came from eggs I bought. 
Those hatched from eggs of my own fowls 
did not take them until the first were almost 
dead. While they were crying around so 
pitiful I would have given ten dollars for a hen 
that would have been a mother to them, but 
I did not have one on the farm that would 
even cluck. Can you tell me how, or the 
cause of their having gapes ? and why one 
lot becomes affected, then the other ?" 



GAPES. 89 

The lady had a " patent mother/' and a 
warm, comfortable room, she arranged a little 
"rim'' for them in a large iron stove-pan, a 
lamp under it, and loose dry dirt several inches 
deep, etc. The dirt may have been from 
where gaping chicks had been using; if 
so, every little worm would be eagerly 
picked up by the young, which would soon 
tell on them. Just as soon as they sneeze 
and begin to dislodge a few of the small 
worms, other chicks get them, and soon the 
whole lot is diseased. But I think the follow- 
ing is the true cause : I presume, from the 
care she gave her poultry, that they were clear 
of lice. The eggs she bought were taken 
probably from nests full of nits, which are al- 
ways ready to adhere to any thing a little 
warm. When the egg is dropped in the nest 
they adhere to it, and so remain until the heat 
of the "incubator" hatches them, and as soon 
the chick is dry enough, they find a lodgment 
in the down, and soon begin their destructive 
warfare. Another inquires, "Are there any 
other lice or mites that produce gapes besides 
those found on poultry?' Yes; there is a 
species of wood-lice found in dry, moldy chip 
piles, that produce it. Also a species of "Jig- 
ger," found under large leaves of different, 
vegetables, that produce it. How can we 
keep clear of it, then? It is plain to be seen 
that your poultry must be kept clear of lice, 
that the places where the young are raised 



v 



90 GAPES — OBSTRUCTION OF THE NOSTRIL. 

must be plowed and cultivated, or burned 
over regularly. That they must not be fed 
where they roost, or where their droppings 
commingle with their food. That you must be- 
gin in time the use of my gape and lice ex- 
terminator, and follow directions to a letter. 
If this is done you can cure them at first, and 
always prevent their taking it. 

In the gape recipe you will have a sure 
preventive ; but you will agree with me, after 
testing this practice, that it is easier to keep 
clear of cholera or roup than of gapes. But 
if you begin in time and act promptly the first 
week your trouble is over. Just as soon as your 
chicks get age, so the muscular tissues of the 
windpipe are tough and hard, they can devour 
all the gape worms they can find, and not be 
injured in the least. 

Symptoms — As the name implies, consists 
of constant gaping, coughing and sneezing, 
together with inactivity and loss of appetite. 

Remedy. — Always have my gape preventive 
ready, and apply as soon as the young are dry 
enough. If you delay too long, look closely 
and you will find mites on top of their heads, 
which you must remove. If you use soon 
enough they will not be there. 



pip, 



Causes. — Exposure to damp or wet weather. 
Symptoms. — Short, quick, spasmodic ppugh, 



• OBSTRUCTION OF THE NOSTRIL. 9 1 

resembling a chirp, a stoppage of the nostrils 
compelling the bird to respire through the 
mouth. If not checked will result in catarrh 
or bronchitis, which may be known by a 
continual rattling in the throat when breath- 
ing. 

Remedy, — Use washes and remedy pre- 
scribed in my roup recipe. It is the first and 
only remedy and preventive I ever found. 

CORYZA OR CATARRH OF THE NOSE. 

Caused by being exposed to wet weather 
and chilly winds. 

Symptoms. — Frequent sneezing, watering 
of the eye, with a thin, slimy discharge from 
the nose. If not attended to at once roup is 
the inevitable result. 

Remedy. — -Treat as for roup. 

OBSTRUCTION OF THE NOSTRIL. 

When the nostrils are obstructed, disease 
supervenes. Often produced by laceration or 
fighting. Canker and ulceration is not unfre- 
quent, and any of the catarrhal affections pro- 
duces this annoying disorder. The symptoms 
are similar to those attending the gapes— 
they gape and pant for breath. 

Remedy. — Wash the nostrils in real hot 
water and suds, to loosen the crust, then re- 



v 



92 ASTHMA ROUP. 

move, and apply the gape preventive. When 
such obstructions arise from catarrh bathe with 
warm milk, and then apply the gape preven- 
tive, 

ASTHMA. 

This disease is caused by an obstruction 
of the air-cells, by accumulation of phlegm 
which interferes with the free exercise of their 
functions. The fowl labors for breath, be- 
cause it can not take in the usual quantity of 
air at an inspiration. The capacity of the 
lungs is diminished, the lining membrane of 
the windpipe becomes thickened, and its mi- 
nute branches are more or less affected. 

Symptoms are short breathing, opening of 
the beak often, heaving and panting of the 
chest ; and in case of a rupture of a blood- 
vessel (which sometimes happens) a drop of 
blood appearing on the beak. 

Remedy. — Confirmed asthma is difficult to 
cure. In its incipient stage it is readily cured 
or prevented by using my remedy for roup. 
Sulphur mixed with butter and a small quan- 
tity of cayenne pepper may help it. 

ROUP. 

This term is used very loosely, both in 
common speaking and among writers on poul- 
try, to characterize disease. It is applied to 
describe maladies as dissimilar as obstruction 



koup. 93 

of the rump gland, the gapes and catarrh. 
It should be confined to a dangerous disorder, 
with symptoms sufficiently marked so any one 
can identify it. 

It is caused mostly by cold and moisture, 
but very often by improper feeding, want of 
cleanliness and proper exercise. 

It is considered by all poultry men to be one 
of the most dreaded and contagious diseases 
of poultry. If you will use the prescribed 
remedies as preventives, it will save you a 
great deal of unpleasant doctoring and the 
lives of many birds. 

The roup affects fowls of all ages, and is 
either acute or chronic; sometimes commenc- 
ing suddenly on exposure, at others gradu- 
ally, as the consequence of neglected colds, 
damp weather or lodging. Chronic roup has 
been known to extend through two years, and 
the patient recover. 

Symptoms. — The most prominent symptoms 
of roup are difficult and noisy breathing, gap- 
ing, terminating in a rattling in the throat. 
The head swells, and is feverish. The eyes 
are swollen, and the eye-lids appear livid; 
the sight decays, and sometimes total blind- 
ness ensues. There are discharges from the 
nostrils and mouth, at first thin and limpid, 
afterward thick, purulent and fetid. In this 
stage it somewhat resembles glanders in 
horses, and becomes very infectious, being 
communicated by the effluvia arising from the 



94 CHOLERA AND ROUP— CONSUMPTION. 

discharge, as well as by the contamination of 
the drinking water by the sick bird's beak 
while drinking. As soon as you see the first 
symptom of it, remove the bird from its well 
companions. 

Remedy. — I know of nothing but my roup 
recipe that will do any good. For years and 
years I tested every thing I could hear of, all 
to no purpose. I have no trouble now. I 
use it as a preventive > which is far better than 
cure. 

CHOLERA AND ROUP. 

Your poultry may show all the foregoing 
or above symptoms, except they stand, and 
a thin slimy water runs from their mouth, it 
does not assume a thick fetid state. This is 
cholera and roup combined. 

Yellow 7 cholera. — So called from their 
droppings being yellow, but the disease is 
crop bound and cholera. 

Symptoms. — They are dull and stupid ; their 
crops seem to be always full, their droppings 
assume a yellow cast ; finally their crops are 
swelled very tight, and contents are hard as 
a stone. 

For remedy, see the cholera recipe, under 
head of yellow cholera. 

consumption. 

Causes. — It generally arises in breeding in 



DISEASES OF THE CIRCULATION. 95 

and in for too long a period — often caused by 
a neglected cold ; confined in dark, unhealthy 
places ; scrofulous tubercles will arise on the 
lungs, liver and other organizations of the 
body. 

Symptoms. — Are hardly observable in the 
early stages of the disease. In the more ad- 
vanced state there is a cough with a wasting 
away of flesh, and indications of weakness. 
It is considered hereditary, and birds so dis- 
eased should not be bred from. 

Remedy. — Years ago, when I did not know 
the cause I used to relieve and apparently 
cure a great many by giving them a teaspoon- 
ful of cod-liver oil twice a day. In the ad- 
vanced stages I consider it incurable. 

DISEASES OF THE CIRCULATION. 

The heart in fowls, as in man and quad- 
rupeds, consists of two ventricles for throw- 
ing the blood into the arteries — one to be 
distributed to the lungs, and the other through 
the rest of the body, and two auricles for re- 
ceiving the returned blood. The blood itself 
is composed of a yellowish substance called 
serum, and a red colored mass, or crassamen- 
tum. 

The blood of fowls is liable to several dis- 
eases, the chief being fever, inflammation and 
rheumatism. 

The most decided fever to which fowls are 



96 BLACK ROT, 

subject, occurs at the period of hatching. At 
this time the animal heat is so increased that 
it is t ,perceptible to the touch. 

Inflammation, the most serious, is of the 
eyes. Small abscesses are formed on the cor- 
nea, and filled with a white-colored pus. In 
an aggravated form the whole of the eye be- 
comes inflamed, the eye-lids swell to a great 
extent, and a matter, like the white of an 
egg, accumulates beneath the swelling. This 
disease sometimes results in blindness, and 
often fatal. It is caused by the vapors aris- 
ing from close confinement and bad ventila- 
tion. 

Treatment and remedy. — Like other cases 
of inflammatory attacks, relief is to be sought 
in a suitable temperature. Use the remedy 
as prescribed for roup. 

Rheumatism may be known by stiffness of 
the joints and limbs, and manifest pain in the 
attempt to move about, which is apt to ren- 
der their gait unsteady or limping. 

Remedy. — Warmth and shelter, with a cool- 
ing and opening diet, and a free use of the 
cholera and iron tonic, for all diseases of the 
circulation. 

black rot. 

Causes. — Generally by lack of exercise, 
continued sameness of food, indigestion, 
want of green food, etc. 



SWELLING OF THE HEAD. 97 

Symptoms. — Comb turns black, swelling of 
the feet and legs and gradual emaciation. 

Remedy. — Give warm, nourishing food, a 
raw egg every other day, and use the cholera 
and iron tonic freely. 

SWELLING OF THE HEAD. 

Causes. — This malady is caused by musty 
food, putrid water, or a general disturbance 
of digestive organs. 

Symptoms. — They mope about, their heads 
swell with fever, etc. 

Remedy. — I have been successful with a 
dessert-spoonful of citrate of magnesia, with 
ten drops of nitre, added to half a pint of 
drinking water. 

APOPLEXY, VERTIGO AND EPILEPSY. 

Causes. — Undue flow of blood to the head, 
generally caused by over-feeding. 

Symptoms. — Running around in a circle, 
often fluttering about, often without any ap- 
parent control of the muscular action. 

Remedy.- — Often by holding the head under 
a small running stream of cold water will 
arrest the disease; if so, place the bird by 
itself in a rather dark place, feed sparingly 
on soft nourishing food a few days. If the 
cold water does no good, take a sharp knife 
or lancet and bleed from the large veins under 



9$ SOFT EGGS. 

the wing ; cut lengthwise of the vein. Also 
give an aperient or a tablespoonful of castor- 
oil to a large fowl, smaller ones in propor- 
tion. 



HERNIA, OR PROTUSION OF THE EGG PASSAGE. 

Causes. — It is caused by the exertions of 
the hen to expel an unusually large egg, or 
in old fowls the general relaxation of the sys- 
tem. 

Symptoms. — Protrusion of the laying gut 
of the hen, which is forced out to such an ex- 
tent, after laying, that it oftentimes does not 
recede. 

Remedy. — Place the hen on a diet of non- 
egg producing food, such as boiled rice and 
potatoes ; give daily a pill composed of two 
grains of calomel, one quarter of a grain of 
tartar emetic, and one grain of opium. 

SOFT SHELL EGGS. 

Cause. — Overfeeding, and the lack of the 
proper material for hens to eat, so as to form 
the shell. 

Symptoms. — More or less inflammation of 
the egg passage, and the egg under the perch 
or in the nest. 

Remedy. — If caused by inflammation of the 
e gg passage, give a feed or two of barley 



LEG WEAKNESS. 99 

meal containing one grain of calomel, and 
half a grain of tartar emetic. 

If lack of shell material, furnish ground 
bone, crushed oyster shells, roasted broken 
bones, etc. 

ABORTION. 

Causes. — Sudden fright, by a dog or any 
other animal. 

Symptoms. — Dropping of a soft or perfect 
egg suddenly, and afterwards moping about 
as if not well. 

Remedy. — Leave by herself and supply 
soft food mixed with ground bone or oyster 
shells ; add a little carbonate of soda in the 
drinking water, say five drops to half a pint 
of water. 

LEG WEAKNESS. 

Causes. — Do not confound this disease with 
the one previously described. It often arises 
from in and in breeding, but it is usually 
caused by too high feeding, which increases 
the weight of the body out of proportion to 
the muscular strength of the limbs. It most 
frequently occurs with the large breeds ; 
Brahmas, Cochins, Plymouth Rocks, etc. • 

Symptoms. — Squatting around on their 
hocks after 1 standing for a short time, as if 
tired ; in bad cases they are unable to stand 
or walk. 



IOO MOULTING. 

Remedy. — I have always cured by dipping 
their legs in cool water, and feeding plenty 
of M shells or bone meal " in their feed, a little 
tallow or fresh meat, and a free use of the 
Iron tome. 

SCALY LEG OR ELEPHANTIASIS. 

Cause. — By a midge or parasite working 
under the scales of a fowl's legs. 

Symptoms. — The appearance of a whitish 
scurf forming on the skin of the legs and toes ; 
if neglected it becomes hard and warty in ap- 
pearance. 

Remedy. — Wash the legs in strong soap 
and water ; when dry, apply my Lice Exter- 
minator — it is infallible. 

MOULTING. 

Causes. — Though it is not a disease, it is 
the most critical period of the year for old 
fowls. There is a greater drain upon the sys- 
tem of the fowl during its change of feathers 
than at any other time. The life-giving pro- 
cess of nature have to be sustained and an 
entire new "suit" of feathers yet to be 
grown. 

Symptoms of bad moulting, are a wast- 
ing away, inactivity, standing round with its 
feathers " fluffed, " and shivering with cold. 

Remedy. — Keep the fowl in good warm 
quarters, out of the wet and cold ; feed plenty 



BAD FLEDGING. IOI 

of good nourishing feed and a teaspoonful, 
daily, of ground flax-seed mixed with its 
feed. Use the iron tonic freely. 

BAD FLEDGING. 

Causes. — This trouble occurs in chicks ; it 
is similar to moulting in fowls, and is occa- 
sioned by the same causes, has nearly the 
same symptoms, and alleviated by the same 
remedies. 

CHICKEN POX. 

Causes. — Unfavorable conditions of the at- 
mosphere ; mostly occurs in cold weather, 
and is very infectious. 

Symptoms. — The head, face, or body is cov- 
ered with small ulcers containing infectious 
matter. 

Remedy. — Wash the affected parts with 
Castile soap and vinegar, diluted one half 
with water. If this fails, use soap and then 
a strong solution of chloride of potassium, 
and feed plenty of charcoal and sulphur in 
their soft feec 1 

WHITE COMB, SCURVY OR ITCH. 

Causes. — Foul coops, decayed food, impure 
water, overcrowding in ill-ventilated and 
dark quarters. 



[02 FROSTED GOMB AND WATTLES. 

Symptoms. — Scurvy appearance of the comb, 
wattle, head and neck, with gradual loss of 
feathers from the head and neck. 

Remedy. — Give clean quarters, good ven- 
tilation, sound feed, then give near a tea- 
spoonful of castor-oil, after which give, daily, 
plenty of charcoal and sulphur and the iron 
tonic. 

frosted comb and wattles. 

Causes. — Exposure to cold freezing weath- 
er, more particularly at night. If they are 
diseased any way, they are very easy frosted. 

Symptoms. — Discoloration of the top of the 
comb and edges of the wattles ; they first 
turn a purplish color, and afterwards become 
pale and bloodless. 

Remedy. — Hold in ice-cold water awhile, 
then apply glycerine. Bathe twice a day in 
tincture of myrrh until well. 

vermin. 

The whole feathered tribe seem to be pe- 
culiarly liable to be infested with lice. 

Old Mascall says: " They get them in 
scraping abroad among foul straw, or when 
they sit in nests not made clean ; or in the 
hen-house, by their droppings lying long 
there, which corrupt their bodies and breeds 
lice and fleas. " 



INCUBATORS. 103 

The presence of lice is not only annoying 
to the poultry, but materially interferes with 
their growth, and prevents their fattening and 
laying. 

If a brood of small chicks become lousy, 
they seldom ever get over it. 

Remedy. — The surest, quickest and best is 
my gape and lice exterminator. Follow di- 
rections and they disappear. 

As a preventive the best I know of is clean- 
liness, and to place plenty of slaked lime, dry 
ashes and sand where they can roll and dust 
themselves. 

INCUBATORS. 

I receive thousands of inquiries — Do you 
use them? What kind is best? Will it pay 
me to use incubators, and raise several thou- 
sand chicks per annum ? After they are 
hatched, could I raise them ? Will they have 
gapes if hatched in an incubator? etc. 

I would prefer the discussion of any other 
subject relating to poultry than " Incubators/' 
from the fact that I never owned one, and I 
fear I may be prejudiced against them, and 
may do them wrong. I have always been 
interested to know their workings, their suc- 
cess and their failures. I have seen a great 
many different kinds and shapes, all embrac- 
ing somewhat similar principles. From what 
I have seen, and from conversation with par- 



104 INCUBATORS, 

ties that sell, and others that use them, I 
think it is useless for an ordinary farmer to 
buy one. In fact the only use I see for them 
yet is where parties wish to supply young 
chicks to cities and towns by the thousands. 
In this case they can be made to pay a large 
profit, if manipulated by parties that under- 
stand the entire business, and spend money 
enough to furnish every needed comfort and 
invention. 

To parties that are wealthy and have a dis- 
position to experiment, I know of nothing 
affording a more interesting field ; but for an 
ordinary farmer or mechanic to undertake it 
to make money, will not do as yet. The time 
may come, and probably will, when incubators 
may be so constructed, and the science of 
rearing the chicks so learned, that they may 
be generally used. 

The design of nature is for the hen to 
hatch her own eggs, and rear and care for the 
little ones. In a wild state they are success- 
ful, but when confined or crowded, it becomes 
a science to assist her, and be successful. It 
is all very nice to furnish a substitute for the 
hen. If we do, in a business point of view we 
must have something cheaper than the time 
of the hen, or the substitute is a failure. With 
this view, so far all the incubators are a fail- 
ure. Suppose the machine hatches every egg. 
One whose capacity is one hundred eggs costs 
about thirty-five dollars ; after the chicks are 



INCUBATORS. IO5 

out they have no mother, and require a great 
deal of nursing and attention that some one 
must give. To hatch the same eggs in the 
natural way requires the time of eight hens, 
which would cost four dollars ; and they will 
mother, brood and care for them, and lay 
twelve eggs each by the time the chicks are 
weaned, and are then worth at least six 
dollars. 

I do not know of an incubator where the 
proprietor is willing to warrant it. I have 
been offered several that cost forty-five dollars 
each for ten dollars, and warranted good as 
new. But the parties offering them would 
not give any personal warrant as to what it 
would do, but would say, "it is claimed for it 
to be thus and so." From correspondence 
and observation, I think the following propo- 
sition covers the ground at present writing : 

After paying for the incubator, and time 
learning to run it, the real chances are that 
not over one-half the eggs will hatch ; one- 
half of those hatched will be inferior, from 
the unnatural handling, and die in a few days, 
and one-half of those left will never reach 
maturity, from various causes. 

If you do buy an incubator, get the best 
made — will be the cheapest in the long run. 
I know of many parties that have " bought 
instructions ' how to make cheap ones, but 
all agree in the end "it would have been 
better and cheaper to have bought a good 



106 INCUBATORS. 

one already to start at first." Take it all in 
all, if you follow instructions given in this 
book as to sitting hens, and follow instructions 
in feeding and caring for chicks, you have a 
cheaper and more convenient incubator and 
mother than you can buy. Now this is the 
business view of it. But if you want to ex- 
perimenty by all means get one — the very best 
you can — and try, and keep trying; finally 
you may learn how to be successful, and in 
turn learn others. 



INDEX 



A Common-sense Incubator 7 

A large Income on a small Outlay 32 

A Hen a Machine _. 32 

Asthma '. 9 2 

Apoplexy. 97 

Abortion . 99 

Bone Meal — Break Shells, Stones, etc 6 

Box for Young Chicks n 

Broilers 13 

Best time for Spring Broods 15 

Breeding 43 to 50 

Black Rot 96 

Care of Brooding Hens 7 

Care of Young Chicks 10, 15, 16, 27 

Coops for Young Chicks I5> 18, to 20 

Chemical Properties of an Egg 33 

Cellar..... 36, 37 

Crop-bound— Costiveness— Diarrhea 82,83 

Catarrh of the Nose * 9 1 

Chicken-pox 101 

Cholera 23, 31, 32 and 77 

Dust-box, To make 6 

Ducks 72, 73 

Diseases of Poultry — Digestive Functions 74 to 77 

Diseases of Respiratory Organs 84 

Diseases of Circulation 95 

Diseases of Egg Passage — Soft Shell Eggs 98 

Eggs — What to Feed in Winter 5 

* ' Hatching . . . 4 

Examine Heads of Young for Lice. 10 

Feeding Poultry 14, 28 to 30 

Farmers should become Breeders 5 1 

Fattening Fowls 63, 64 

Frosted Comb and Wattles 102 

Gapes 85 to '90 

Gapes, Roup and Cholera must be Prevented 3 

Geese 71, 7 2 

How to Prepare Nests 5 

Hot Weather 27, 28 

Hog Cholera 80 to 90 

Inducements for a Hen to Sit § 



IOS INDEX. 



If she Picks her Chicks 13 

Indigestion 81 

Imflammation of the Eyes 96 

Incubators 103 to 106 

June Hatches. . . • 26, 27 

Keep the Coop dry for Young Chicks 14 

Look out for Gapes 20 

La Y in §: 53» 55» 56 

Leg Weakness 99 

My first Mistakes Three Diseases that must be Prevented. . 3 

Moulting 28, 30, 31, 54, 100 

Movable Coops 40 to 42 

Mechanics can be Successful « 52, 53 

Number of Eggs for Brooding Hens 8 

Nests 40 to 60 

Object of Keeping Nests and Eggs damp 9 

Provision for Cool Weather 17 

Perches 23, 24, 25 

Plow your Runs 25, 26 

Pure Breeds — To Keep them Pure 42 to 51 

Pairing 57 

Poultry Houses 36, 59 to 62 

Pip 90 

Restless Hens 9, 1 1 

Rats 14 

Red Lice 22 

Road Dust 37 

Roup — Rheumatism 92, 94, 96 

Sitting Hens— The Best for " Mothers " 5 

Spring Pullets — Saving Winter Feed 34 to 40 

Sulphur, Use of 9 

Selecting a Good Cock 58, 59 

Selecting a Good Hen 97 

Scaly Leg - 100 

To restore to Life when almost Drowned 16 

To Compel Hens to lay Eggs ^, 34 

Turkeys all about them 65 to 71 

Transportation of Eggs — Vitality of Eggs to hatch 4 

Unfruitful Eggs 57 

Vigilance 21 

Vermin 102 

What age to begin feeding Young Chicks 11 

What to feed Young Chicks 12, 13, 22 

Watering Young Chicks 12 

Watering Poultry 22 

Wind Brake 17 

Why Farmers do not Succeed 21 

Wintering Poultr- 36, 37 



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